Wine-Tasting Trip Takes Deadly Turn

A San Francisco woman who was wine tasting with friends in Sonoma County was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter in connection with a crash near Geyserville Sunday that killed  two Cloverdale women, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said.

Lyndsay Murray-Mazany, 27, is being held in Sonoma County Jail on $100,000 bail. She will be arraigned this afternoon in Sonoma County Superior Court.

Murray-Mazany was driving a 2004 Hyundai sport utility vehicle south on Geyserville Avenue just east of U.S. Highway 101 at about 45 mph when the crash happened at about 5:30 p.m., CHP Officer Jon Sloat said.

Sloat said Murray-Mazany drove straight through a 90-degree turn and struck the left side of an eastbound 2001 Subaru Forrester driven by Katherine Hinzman, 56, of Cloverdale.

Two passengers in the Subaru, Beverly Jones and Nancy McBride, both 77-year-old Cloverdale residents, were killed on impact, Sloat said. Hinzman and two other passengers, Alice Sheperla, 82, and Barbara King, 70, of Cloverdale, suffered moderate to major injuries and were taken to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Sloat said.

Hinzman and her friends had attended a play at Santa Rosa Junior College and were driving to Geyserville for dinner, Sloat said. Murray-Mazany and her three passengers were uninjured.  Murray-Mazany told the CHP they were wine tasting in the Geyserville area, Sloat said.

Sloat said fatal crashes involving drivers who have been wine tasting are "kind of rare considering how many wineries we have here."

"We don't get a lot of those calls," Sloat said.