Woman Charged In I-355 Crash That Claimed Infant Son's Life

DOWNERS GROVE, IL — A 26-year-old Chicago woman faces felony drunk driving charges in connection with an accident on I-355 that killed her five-month-old son in June.

Alexus K. Sigle has been charged with aggravated driving under the influence causing great bodily harm and originally faced other charges, all of which were dropped when the initial misdemeanor drunk driving charges were upgraded to a felony after the boy died eight days after the accident.

Sigle was arrested on Monday and is being held on $250,000 bond after appearing in court on Tuesday. She is next scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 9.

The boy was one of seven people inside a Hyundai Sonata near Ogden Avenue near Lisle just before 7 p.m. on June 13. Six of the occupants in the car were children and, according to court records and Sigle had a blood alcohol level of .163, according to the court documents, and which is more than twice the legal limit.

“It is alleged that after she had been drinking, Alexus Sigle got behind the wheel of a car with seven passengers, six of whom were minors and were allegedly not properly secured in the vehicle,” DuPage County State Attorney General Robert Berlin said in a news release. “That decision however, proved to be fatal to her five-month-old infant son whose short life has now been reduced to a drunk driving statistic."

None of the children were wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash and the five-month-old boy was on the lap of a front-seat passenger, court documents show. A six-year-old girl was also seriously injured in the accident.

The charging documents state that Sigle was driving north on I-355 and failed to reduce the speed of her vehicle to avoid hitting a truck bed cover that was partially blocking a lane in the expressway. Illinois State Police said that the driver of the truck had pulled to the side of the expressway to retrieve the cover when Sigle's car hit her brakes to avoid the cover and then lost control of her car, police said Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Sigle drove hard onto the right shoulder before she crossed over all lanes of traffic and then hit a concrete median. In addition to Sigle and her 5-month-old son, five other children - including a 4-year-old boy, a 5-year-old- boy, a 6-year-old girl, a 7-year-old girl, and an 8-year-old girl were in the car at the time.

Five previous charges, including endangering the life or health of life of a child, driving an uninsured vehicle, driving too fast for conditions and others were dropped in lieu of the felony DUI charge.