Deadly Driver or Tragic Survivor? The Heckscher Drive Case

At around 3:30 in the morning, two vehicles met head-on on a Jacksonville highway.

One driver never made it home. The other survived with serious injuries, and a year later she was charged with manslaughter.

In 2019 a jury convicted her of DUI manslaughter. She has said her own blood alcohol readings were below the legal limit.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 5, 8

Derrick

His name was Derrick Lamar Jones. He was 46.

His sister-in-law remembered him simply. “He helped a lot of people, and a lot of people loved him,” she said.

Sources for this section: 1, 2

Half past three

It was Sunday, May 29, 2016. Lark Dana Hodge, 20, was driving a Ford Escape on Heckscher Drive in Jacksonville, Florida.

According to the Florida Highway Patrol, she lost control near Heritage River Road and crossed into oncoming traffic. Her Escape hit a GMC Yukon driven by Jones nearly head-on.

The impact pushed Jones’s SUV into a nearby marsh. He died at the scene.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

The hospital

Hodge survived. She was taken to UF Health Jacksonville with serious injuries.

Troopers said that night that alcohol may have been a factor. Witnesses told them Hodge said she had been drinking and had fallen asleep before the crash. She was under 21, too young to drink legally.

Blood drawn at the hospital and by law enforcement became the center of the case. According to prosecutors, medical records put Hodge’s blood alcohol level at .094. Florida’s legal limit for drivers is .08.

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 5, 6, 8

Almost a year

It took troopers almost a year to make an arrest. In May 2017, after what they called months of extensive investigating, they arrested Hodge at a home and charged her with DUI manslaughter. Her bond was set at $75,003.

Hodge tells it differently. In a later interview, she said her own readings were below the legal limit. In 2025, A&E told her story in an episode of Accused: Did I Do It? Coverage of that episode says the higher hospital result was found about a year after the crash, which led to her arrest.

Sources for this section: 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10

The evidence

His sister-in-law told a reporter she had read his autopsy report. “I know he had alcohol in his system,” she said.

Jones was no saint, she said, “but he ain’t the one that swerved off the side of the road.” Troopers identified Hodge as the driver who drove into oncoming traffic.

Hodge and her defense attorney have since said more: that his level was higher than hers, and that drugs were found too. Those claims come from her side of the case.

The defense wanted jurors to weigh other possible factors. By Hodge’s account and reports on the TV episode, the judge kept that evidence out of the trial, so the jury never heard it.

Sources for this section: 2, 3, 8, 9, 10

The verdict

In May 2019, nearly three years after the crash, a Jacksonville jury found Hodge guilty of DUI manslaughter.

She faced up to 15 years in Florida State Prison. By her account and later coverage, she was sentenced to five years, followed by house arrest.

Sources for this section: 5, 6, 8, 10

Five years

She appealed. On July 31, 2020, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed her conviction without a written opinion.

By her account and later coverage, she was released in August 2023.

Sources for this section: 7, 8, 10

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