Pacific Grove man sentenced in deadly DUI crash in Marina

A Pacific Grove man, who pleaded guilty of his role in a deadly December 2018 crash on Highway 1, was sentenced Tuesday.

25-year-old Stewart Maxwell Napier pleaded guilty to one count of vehicular manslaughter while under the influence and one count of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury in May. He was sentenced to seven years in prison Tuesday.

24-year-old Gregory Anthony Ancona was killed in the crash on December 5, 2018.

Napier was driving on Highway 1 near the Eighth Street over crossing in Marina. He said that he looked down for a lighter, and when he looked up, he saw Ancona’s brake lights, and they collided. Ancona’s car swerved off the road. He died at the scene.

A California Highway Patrol investigation found that Napier was under the influence of meth and heroin. The DA’s release says Napier admitted to taking these substances before the crash.

Several family members of Ancona gave victim remarks during the court hearing as Napier watched on with little emotion.

Ancona’s great aunt who says she raised Ancona alongside his grandmother said a seen year sentence is not nearly enough.

“Is it enough? Never. Like I said in there, life is a life for me. I never thought I’d be in this situation,” Helen Ruiz Thomas said.

“It was evident to the naked eye that this young man had a drug addiction problem,” the victim’s grandmother Consuela Ancona said.