Franklin man charged in head-on crash that killed child held on $250K bail

Yahoo

27-05-2025

A Franklin man was held Tuesday after being arraigned on drunken driving charges following a head-on crash into a family's car that left a 5-year-old Franklin girl dead Saturday night.
James N. Blanchard, 21, was held on $250,000 cash bail after his arraignment in Wrentham District Court on several charges, including motor vehicle homicide while driving under the influence and driving with multiple open containers of alcohol.
Read more: Child killed and two family members seriously injured by alleged drunken driver in Franklin
The crash, which occurred shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, May 24 on Grove Street, left the girl dead, and her 14-year-old brother and her mother, Minabel Patel, seriously injured. The names of the children were not released. Atulkumar Patel, the family's father, was released from a hospital with minor injuries.
Franklin police officers, firefighters and EMS provided emergency care to the girl on the scene. She was later flown via emergency helicopter to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Police and firefighters responded at about 6:20 p.m. to the area of 76 Grove St. after multiple calls were received about an accident.
According to a Franklin police report, the father told officers they were headed to Blackstone for his son's birthday when he 'saw a truck driving in his lane.'
'He tried to avoid being hit by the truck by turning left into the opposite lane of travel, but they ended up colliding anyway,' the police report said.
Blanchard, who was accompanied by his mother, was seen at the scene with a small amount of blood on his nose and bloodshot, glassy eyes, the report said.
When asked what happened, Blanchard said 'that he was coming home from Plainville where he works, then all of sudden there was a crash,' the police report said.
Police said Blanchard was evasive when asked if he specifically crossed over into the oncoming lane, telling officers at the scene that he didn't remember too much and that the crash happened very fast.
Police said multiple containers of vodka and beer were found inside Blanchard's truck, including two 1.75L 'handles' of vodka.
Combined with slurred speech and not talking with officers face-on, Blanchard completed a Breathalyzer test in which he displayed a blood alcohol content of 0.189, according to the police report. A level of .08 is the legal limit in Massachusetts.
Blanchard told detectives he stopped at a liquor store in Plainville after working as a mechanic, where he purchased a 1.75-liter bottle of Tito's vodka and a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, then he went to do landscaping.
'At the landscaping job, he had two beers. When he left, he opened the bottle of Tito's, which he had bought earlier, and began drinking straight out of it and drove home,' the police report said.
'When asked about the two bottles of Tito's in his vehicle, he said the empty bottle was from the night before, and the one that was 1/4 full of vodka was the bottle he bought earlier in the day, and the one he was drinking from before the crash,' the police report said.
By the time of the crash, Blanchard had drunk three quarters of one of the bottles of Tito's, police said.
Police said Blanchard passed out in his holding cell at the police station.
'We knocked on the cell door, banged on the cell door, tapped on the cell door with a key, and even opened the food tray vent and yelled to gain his attention; however Blanchard slept through all of it,' the police report said.
'We ended up opening the cell door and shook his shoulder to gain his attention,' the police report stated. 'He declined to make a phone call and went back to sleep.'
Blanchard pleaded not guilty, and despite his attorney requesting $10,000 bail due to his previously clean record, the judge ruled on $250,000 bail.
The pretrial court date is set for June 24, at Wrentham District Court.
The accident is one of two that happened within the area over the holiday weekend.
A Westport couple in their 70s died in a head-on crash in Dartmouth Sunday morning.
The crash happened on Old Westport Road at about 10:30 a.m. May 25.
Dartmouth Police found two vehicles, one driven by Philip Morris, 63, of Dartmouth, and another driven by Jeffrey Moniz, 76, of Westport. Moniz's wife, Diane Moniz, 76, was a passenger in that car. Both Jeffrey and Diane Moniz died in the crash.
An investigation revealed that Morris's vehicle crossed the double yellow line and struck the other car.
Morris, who had minor injuries, has been charged and will be served with a summons for two counts of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and a marked lanes violation, the DA's office said.
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