John Jefferson
Left: Mary Jane Terry’s booking photo (Forest County Sheriff’s Office). Right: Mary Jane Terry in court on Jan. 6, 2025 (WJFW/YouTube).
A Wisconsin woman who struck her husband with her truck while driving drunk and dragged his dead body across the road entered a plea of guilty to a lesser charge.
Mary Jane Terry, 50, was originally charged with first-degree intentional homicide after police accused her of killing her husband, Donald Britten Jr., when she hit him with her truck on Oct. 19, 2023. According to the criminal complaint, a neighbor heard a “prolonged thud” outside his window that night after brake lights glared into his home. After that thud, he told police that he heard a “doo, doo, doo, doo” sound — that turned out to be the sound of Britten’s body being dragged by a truck driven by Terry. He was found laying dead in the street.
When police arrived at the scene, Forest County Sheriff’s Deputy William Stanley was able to identify Britten since he had known both Britten and Terry for over 20 years. Terry was standing by her now-late husband’s body upon Stanley’s arrival. She reportedly asked the officer several times, “Billy, is he dead?”
Stanley attempted to perform CPR on Britten, but noticed no signs that he was still alive. When Stanley asked Terry if Britten had been hit by a truck, she said, “yes.” But when asked who was driving the truck, she said, “I don’t know, he had my truck.” After Terry finally acknowledged that she had driven the truck at one point to retrieve her phone from her home, she denied that she was the one who struck her husband.
Another deputy also noticed, according to the report, that Terry smelled like alcohol.
A field sobriety test was conducted on Terry, including a breath test. Terry blew a 0.298, almost four times the legal limit of 0.08. After a swing by the hospital for a blood draw, Terry was taken to the Forest County Jail and booked.
As Terry’s story about the incident kept changing, suspicion about her role in the fatal collision grew. Evidence against Terry piled up, and the bar owner was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle.
In court on Jan. 6, Terry pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle. As part of the plea agreement, the first-degree intentional homicide charge was dropped. She is due to be sentenced on May 16.
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