A Rio Grande City mom will spend eight years in prison. She caused a drunk crash that killed her own 8-year-old daughter. That crash happened back in 2020. Elia Marie De La Cruz, now 41, pleaded guilty on August 19, 2026. The plea happened in the 381st District Court. Judge Jose Luis Garza gave her the sentence.
The case took more than six years to close. Cops first charged De La Cruz with intoxication manslaughter. That means causing a death by driving drunk. It can bring 2 to 20 years in prison. Later, a grand jury hit her with a much bigger charge: felony murder. Prosecutors said her crime was driving drunk with her own daughter in the car. That charge is a first-degree felony. A jury could have given her 5 to 99 years, or even life in prison. In the end, she pleaded guilty to a smaller charge inside that one. That charge was intoxication manslaughter. Under the deal, she got 8 years. The case also had a strange twist. Her own lawyer from 2020 is now the Starr County District Attorney.
The crash happened early on Saturday, February 8, 2020. It was about 3:24 a.m. on US Highway 83 in Rio Grande City, near the Rio Grande Grower Co-Op. De La Cruz drove a rented black 2019 Nissan Rogue SUV. Her 8-year-old daughter sat in the front seat next to her.
She slammed into the back of a garbage truck. The truck was a white 2008 Autocar owned by Grande Garbage Collection. Driver Adan Santana was starting his shift. His wife rode along with him. Cameras at the co-op caught the whole crash on tape. The truck drove normal in its own lane. No other cars were near it. The Nissan came up fast from behind and hit it hard. The brake lights never came on.
The Nissan's black box, a crash data recorder, told the real story. Five seconds before impact, the SUV was going 91 miles per hour. At the moment of the crash, it was still going 76. The speed limit there is 60. De La Cruz barely touched the brakes. She hit them about a twentieth of a second before the hit. That is close to no braking at all.
Cops found two beer cans in the front console. One was open. They found more beer under the seat. They also found pills for anxiety in the back seat, 14 in all. Blood tests from Texas state police showed her blood alcohol level was 0.170. That is more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
Store video backs up the timeline. The night before the crash, cameras caught De La Cruz on tape. It was at a drive-thru store, about 11:27 p.m. She bought two 8-packs of beer and a soda. The video shows her sipping a beer at the wheel with her daughter beside her. It shows the two taking selfies together. Neither one wore a seatbelt.
Her daughter was pulled from the wreck. An off-duty nurse who stopped to help gave her CPR in the ambulance. The girl died that same morning, at 4 a.m. An autopsy found she died from her injuries in the crash. De La Cruz was hurt too, in her back and neck. She went to the hospital. She let cops draw her blood. She later refused to answer more questions after cops read her her rights.
Cops arrested De La Cruz about two and a half weeks later, on February 26, 2020. She was let out on bond. The case sat for years. Then, on September 29, 2022, a Starr County grand jury hit her with murder, KRGV News reported. Court records show that charge was felony murder. Her own drunk driving, with her child in the car, was the crime underneath it.
Court records show a real conflict in the case. The police offense report says De La Cruz herself told investigators, back in 2020, that her lawyer was Allen "Gocha" Ramirez. She would not talk to detectives without his say-so. That was before Ramirez won the D.A.'s race. He is now the 229th District Attorney, the office that covers Starr County. Ramirez was recused from this case, meaning he had to step aside. His past work as her lawyer is the likely reason. A judge brought in the district attorney from Webb County to take over. That prosecutor is Isidro R. Alaniz. His attorney in court, Timothy Bland, handled the plea deal. A different lawyer, Calixtro Villarreal, stood for De La Cruz at her sentencing.
Case files show Child Protective Services opened its own case after the girl died. No outcome from that case is public. Records show that De La Cruz later sued Grande Garbage Company. She argued the trash collection company was negligent in how it operated the garbage truck. No details are public yet on how that case turned out.
