Masontown man sentenced for DUI causing death

KINGWOOD — Dennis Olaf Spencer Jr. was sentenced to prison March 9 for causing the accident that killed a man he said was “like a brother.”

Spencer, 45, of Masontown, pleaded guilty in January to DUI causing the death of Wayne Thomas in April 2017. According to police, Spencer’s blood alcohol level was .147 — nearly twice the legal limit to drive of .08 — when his car crashed into Thomas’s stopped Geo Tracker.

Spencer and his attorney asked that he receive probation. “Wayne was like a brother to me,” he told Preston Circuit Judge Lawrance Miller Jr.

Spencer said he, Thomas and friends were drinking before the incident.

While Spencer made “a good effort” to pull Thomas from the Geo when it caught fire after the collision, neither should have been driving after drinking, the judge said. He noted that Thomas suffered burns on 80 percent of his body, later dying in a burn care unit.

Miller sentenced Spencer to 3-15 years in prison, fined him $1,000 and ordered him to pay the court costs, while giving credit for time served.