Driver who killed girl, 10, again faces multiple DUI charges

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Glen R. Higginbotham Jr., a former Lockport resident, was convicted of killing a 10-year old girl while drunken driving in 1999. He was arrested again on Christmas Day and charged with numerous violations including DUI. | Supplied photo

Updated: February 1, 2012 8:11AM

During the nearly 18 months since he finished his punishment for killing a 10-year-old Lockport girl while driving drunk, Glen Higgginbotham Jr. has been arrested twice more for DUI.

The first DUI arrest came a year ago, only five months after the Yorkville man was discharged from a prison sentence he received — in part for his conviction in the May 1999 drunken driving crash that killed Candace Graham. His second DUI arrest came Christmas Day.

Now, Higginbotham, 33, is facing two court dates in January on the separate drunken driving cases.

Court records show that Higginbotham has a history of run-ins with the law — including the night he was racing at 81 mph in a 35-mph zone, with a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit, when he smashed into the car containing the girl.

Candace Graham, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown into the back seat by the force of the collision, which occurred as her mother was coming out of a convenience store parking lot. Constance Graham later admitted that she also was intoxicated at the time.

Higginbotham was convicted in 2000 of reckless homicide and sentenced to seven years in prison. That term was served at the same time as a 14-year sentence he received in December 1999 after being convicted of theft, possession of a stolen vehicle and aggravated battery, records show.

Higginbotham was incarcerated from May 2000 to July 2008 and then served two years on parole, which he completed July 9, 2010, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

In December 2010 — months after his release from parole — Joliet police found Higginbotham, then of Braidwood, slumped behind the wheel of his running car with a half-empty bottle of vodka next to him. His car was sitting in a home’s front yard.

He was charged with drunken driving and driving on a revoked license and has a Jan. 9 court date in Will County, according to court records.

In March 2010, Higginbotham was charged and later pleaded guilty to driving on a revoked license and speeding.

Most recently, Will County sheriff’s police charged him on Christmas Day with drunken driving, leaving the scene of an accident, driving on a revoked license, having an unsafe tire and driving in the wrong lane. He’s in custody and has a preliminary hearing on those charges scheduled for Jan. 18.

Police said they saw Higginbotham, who refused a breath test, pull his truck into a parking lot with one of the tires partially off its rim and shooting sparks. He had struck a vehicle on New Lenox Road before pulling into the lot at New Lenox Road and Oakview Avenue in Joliet Township, according to police.

Higginbotham’s previous criminal record includes felony charges of stolen vehicles, residential burglary, theft and aggravated battery in 1995, armed violence and aggravated battery in 1996 and theft in 1998.