A Fort Worth woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars after a jury handed down a sentence of life without parole — the maximum allowed — for killing a veteran police sergeant in a drunk driving crash that unfolded in the early morning darkness of August 2024.
De Aujalae Evans pleaded guilty to intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer just hours into her trial Thursday, sealing her fate in the death of Fort Worth Police Sgt. Billy Randolph, a 29-year department veteran who was working a highway accident scene when Evans’ vehicle struck and killed him. The case drew widespread attention across North Texas — not just because of how it happened, but because of who was lost.
A Deadly Wrong Turn
It was just before 5:38 a.m. on August 12, 2024, when Evans drove the wrong way down an exit ramp from Interstate 35W near Sycamore School Road. Randolph was already on scene, working a separate crash involving a tractor-trailer that had struck a guardrail, caught fire, and spilled fuel across the roadway. He never saw her coming. He was killed at the scene, according to CBS News Texas.
What happened next made it worse. After striking Randolph, Evans kept driving — nearly a quarter mile — before attempting to flee on foot. She didn’t get far. When officers caught up with her, she admitted to drinking at least 10 shots of liquor over four hours before getting behind the wheel. She failed a field sobriety test.
Ten shots. Four hours. Wrong way on a highway exit ramp. At 5:30 in the morning.
A Plea, and a Past
Evans didn’t make it through a full day of trial before pleading guilty — not only to intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer, but also to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a prior charge for which she had been on probation. One of the conditions of that probation: no alcohol. She was, reportedly, in clear violation of it the night Randolph died.
That detail carries a particular weight. This wasn’t a first brush with the law. There were systems in place — conditions, requirements, legal obligations — and they didn’t hold. The consequences of that failure are now irreversible.
‘Her Decision Was to Get Behind the Wheel Drunk’
Following Evans’ arrest last year, investigators didn’t mince words. “There is no excuse for drinking and driving,” a law enforcement official stated bluntly. “It is too easy to make plans beforehand or just use a ride service. Ms. Evans made a decision. Her decision was to get behind the wheel drunk.” It’s the kind of statement that sounds like a prepared remark — until you remember a man is dead because of it.
Twenty-Nine Years. A Family. Gone.
Sgt. Randolph had spent 29 years with the Fort Worth Police Department, assigned to South Patrol. He was a husband. A father of two. The kind of career that doesn’t happen by accident — nearly three decades of showing up, working crashes, doing the unglamorous work that keeps roads and communities functioning. He was killed in the line of duty doing exactly that.
Still, a life sentence doesn’t give his family their husband and father back. It doesn’t undo the morning of August 12th, or the fire on I-35W, or the wrong-way turn that ended everything. What it does is send a message — though how loudly that message echoes beyond a Fort Worth courtroom is, as always, an open question.
Twenty-nine years of service. Ten shots of liquor. One decision. That’s the math no sentence can fully balance.
