MS Coast man was driving drunk when he killed a man in a crash. ‘I am very remorseful.’
A Hancock County man said he still prays for a man he killed in a fatal drunk-driving crash.
“I am very remorseful that this happened,” James Clyde Holmes Jr. said before pleading guilty Monday to manslaughter in the Nov. 7, 2022, crash that killed Bizmark Perez.
“I pray for Mr. Perez,” Holmes said.
Holmes was driving drunk when his blue Chevrolet pickup truck struck the back of a red GMC truck near Kiln-Waveland Cutoff Road.
Perez was a passenger in the bed of the red GMC. Upon impact, Waveland police said the crash ejected Perez from the bed of the red GMC, and Holmes drove over him. Perez died shortly after.
A Hancock County grand jury later indicted Holmes on felony charges of manslaughter and DUI causing death. In exchange for a guilty plea, prosecutors are dismissing the DUI death charge.
After entering the guilty plea, Judge Christopher Schmidt sent Holmes to the Hancock County jail pending his sentencing in June.
Hancock County prosecutors have recommended a 10-year suspended prison sentence for Holmes, with five years to serve and five under post-release supervision, plus a $2,000 fine.
