Woman Driving Drunk Killed 3 In Bensalem, Gets Prison

BENSALEM, PA — A New Jersey woman may spend more than two decades in prison for killing three people while drunk and driving the wrong direction on Interstate 95 in Bensalem.

Priscilla Cortez, 34, of Camden, N.J., was sentenced to 12-24 years behind bars Monday by Common Pleas Court Judge C. Theodore Frisch, Jr.

She had pleaded guilty in October to three counts each of homicide by vehicle while drunken driving and homicide by vehicle, as well as three counts of drunken driving and several other offenses.

Cortez was arrested last year and charged in the April 1, 2020 deaths of Ryan Connell, 28 and Leanne Popson, 35, of Levittown, and Lucas Galatko, 36, of Yardley.

She was driving south on I-95 northbound in Bensalem at about 1:40 a.m. when she crashed into the group's Chrysler, killing the three. All three victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

Prosecutors say all three victims had children. At Monday's sentencing, Gelatko's mother described her son as a "funny, playful person who is dead because a woman decided to drive when she had been drinking."

Connell's father described him as the father of three small children who will never get him back.

"The hope and take here will be of the seriousness of drinking and driving and what could be the outcome when making the wrong decision," he said.

Popson's father said he was devastated, saying he misses his daughter, and only child, "more and more every day."

According to investigators, Cortez was driving 69 mph when she crashed into the victims. A blood draw showed her with a blood-alcohol level of .156 — nearly twice the legal limit — and with marijuana in her system.