Woman killed Cal Poly student in drunken hit-and-run. She just pleaded guilty to new DUI
Four years after she was convicted of killing a Cal Poly student in a drunken hit-and-run, a Los Osos woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to hitting several parked cars while driving under the influence again, the San Luis Obispo District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Gianna Brencola, who received a seven-year prison sentence for vehicular manslaughter in the death of Kennedy Love in 2017, is alleged to have hit four parked cars on Oct. 31, 2021, while driving with a blood alcohol content nearly four times the legal limit.
According to a redacted police report, the 23-year-old hit the cars near 725 Embarcadero in Morro Bay. The Morro Bay Police Department confirmed to The Tribune that her blood alcohol content was above 0.3 percent.
She pleaded guilty to felony driving while under the influence of alcohol, which carries a maximum three-year sentence that can be doubled to six years because of her previous conviction.
Her sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 30.
Brencola’s previous conviction
On Aug. 28, 2017, Brencola hit and killed Love, a Cal Poly student, while he was riding his bicycle along Foothill Boulevard near Ferrini Road. She was 17 at the time.
After the crash, witnesses said the vehicle pulled into a nearby parking lot, where two women got out and examined the damage before getting back in the car and driving off, according to previous Tribune reporting. The vehicle was discovered abandoned on Tassajara Drive.
Brencola allegedly admitted to investigators that she was driving the vehicle that struck Love, and that she had been drinking alcohol earlier that night. Court records said she had a 0.15 percent blood alcohol content level roughly five hours after the crash.
Brencola was sentenced to serve seven years for vehicular manslaughter on April 18, 2018. She had about a year and a half of custody credits at the time, and because vehicular manslaughter is not a violent crime in California, her sentence could be halved with good behavior.
The California Department of Corrections released her Dec. 18, 2019, because of her participation in a community re-entry program in prison. She was released from parole March 16, 2021.
Dee Dee Love, Kennedy Love’s mother, previously told The Tribune she felt Brencola was not held accountable for her son’s death appropriately if she chose to drive drunk again.
“You would think that knowing that you could kill somebody for making these choices would be enough of a deterrent to do it again,” Love said. “But I think that because her sentence was so reduced, she does not see it as enough of a deterrent.”
