Ex-School Principal’s Murder Sentence Upheld In LA County DUI Killing

LOS ANGELES, CA — A state appeals court panel has upheld the 15- years-to-life prison sentence handed down to a former elementary school principal who was convicted of a deadly DUI crash in the Palmdale area.

In a ruling released Tuesday, the three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's contention that a judge abused her discretion in re-sentencing Mary Noel Kruppe to 15 years to life after the case was sent back to the trial court based on changes in state law.

"The court explicitly noted that it had discretion, and then explained why the aggravated nature of the offense and defendant's seemingly callous reasons for disregarding the dangers she knew arose from drinking and driving outweighed the rehabilitative efforts she had thus far made," according to the ruling.

The prison term was the same sentence Kruppe, now 43, had received in 2020 after being convicted of second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in connection with the Nov. 15, 2018, collision that killed 29-year-old Jessica Ordaz of Lancaster.

The defense contended that Kruppe should have been re-sentenced to the lesser term of six years on the vehicular manslaughter count instead of the 15-years-to-life term.

Kruppe — who was the principal of Enterprise Elementary School in Lancaster at the time — veered left into oncoming traffic while driving southbound on 50th Street East, north of Avenue P, and her 2014 Jeep Wrangler collided head-on with a 2010 Mazda driven by Ordaz, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Kruppe was taken to a hospital for treatment of moderate injuries.

The appellate court panel noted that Kruppe had taught students at her school about the dangers of drinking and driving and that a colleague and friend with whom the defendant occasionally socialized repeatedly urged her to call a ride-share service to get home rather than driving herself if she had been drinking. She denied drinking the day of the collision, according to the ruling.

In a 2020 ruling upholding Kruppe's conviction, a state appeals court panel noted that "defendant was not someone who had a drink or two and marginally exceeded the legal limit; the undisputed expert testimony was that defendant consumed in excess of four drinks and was well over the legal limit," and that her blood-alcohol concentration was more than twice the legal limit nearly two hours after the crash.

The Pearblossom resident was arrested the night of the crash by California Highway Patrol investigators and has remained behind bars since then.

A tentative date has been set next March for a parole suitability hearing for Kruppe, according to California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation records.

City News Service