Driver with 8 DUIs now faces homicide charge

A West Chester man with seven prior drunk-driving arrests was drunk and driving with a suspended license when he fatally hit a motorcyclist in April, Chester County District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan said.

Robert Elwood Landis, 49, of Concord Road near Oakbourne, now is charged with homicide by vehicle, driving under the influence and related offenses for killing Liam Crowley, 24, on April 26 in Westtown Township, Hogan said.

Landis was driving a 2004 Dodge Ram pickup truck south on Wilmington Pike when he turned into traffic at Stanton Avenue and hit Crowley, Hogan said. He claimed he only had "a couple of beers," but police found "numerous" empty and full beer cans in his truck and tests showed his blood-alcohol level at 0.28 percent - more than three times the legal limit in Pennsylvania, Hogan said. Crowley died at Paoli Hospital two days later.

"Anybody who drives drunk is in danger of killing another person," Hogan said. "Getting behind the wheel of a pickup truck at night on the highway with this much alcohol in your system is like firing a 5,000-pound bullet into a crowd of people."