Charges: Woman was drinking from bottle of Tito's before wrong-way crash that killed musician
An Alexandria woman has been charged with being drunk while driving the wrong way on I-94 in western Wisconsin, causing a 4-vehicle crash that left a Twin Cities musician dead.
Amber Lea Pospisil, 31, who is accused of drinking vodka behind the wheel as she returned from a wedding in Wisconsin, was also serving probation for a previous drunk-driving crash in Minnesota.
Killed in the collision at around 12:30 a.m. was Mark Filbrandt, a 54-year-old from Robbinsdale who played guitar for the Twin Cities-based death metal band Gorrified. He was returning home from a gig in Menomonie when the crash happened.
According to the charges filed against Pospisil, she said she had been at a wedding in Blair, Wisconsin, and had started drinking a bottle of Tito's vodka before she left, and continued to drink it until the crash.
The charges against Pospisil – of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle and two counts of reckless endangerment – state that police were called to a four-vehicle collision near Hudson a few minutes after 911 dispatch received a call about a vehicle traveling east n the westbound lanes.
They arrived to find a Toyota RAV-4 SUV driven by Filbrandt had been hit head-on by Pospisil's Toyota Corolla Cross, and two other vehicles that had struck debris as they passed the crash scene . Filbrandt was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.
The complaint alleges Pospisil, who suffered minor injuries in the collision, had "slurred speech" and had a "difficult time keeping her balance" when police got to the scene. She admitted to drinking before the crash.
When she went to retrieve her driver's license from her SUV, police noted the empty Tito's bottle lying on the floor.
She told police she had been going to AA meetings for alcoholism, and said her drinking and driving on the day of the crash was for "freedom," and likened it to a relapse.
Pospisil did not remember much from the crash, and was reportedly "shocked" when police told her Filbrandt had died.
A blood sample was taken, with no results yet on her blood-alcohol content.
At the time of the crash, Pospisil was serving three years probation after being over three-times the limit when she rear-ended a vehicle in Brandon, Minnesota, in January 2021, causing two people minor injuries.
