Drunk driver who killed deputy's wife charged with 3rd DWI

SHOREVIEW, Minn. (FOX 9) - A woman who struck and killed the wife of a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy’s while driving drunk in 2008 has now been charged with another DWI in the same county where the previous incident occurred. 

Elizabeth Renee Jacobsen, 34, of Brooklyn Park was arrested on Tuesday for drunk driving after someone called 911 to report she was driving erratically along Highway J in Shoreview around 2:30 p.m. 

According to the charges, Jacobson pulled into a Freedom gas station where she was seen slumped over the wheel. Before Ramsey County sheriff’s deputies could arrive, she was back on the road driving.

Deputies pursued her for four miles but she refused to pull over. They executed a PIT maneuver at the on-ramp for 35E. 

The charges say Jacobson refused to get out of the vehicle and deputies had to use a baton to break the driver’s side window and unlock the door. 

Jacobson denied drug and alcohol use, but told officers she had taken Effexor, an antidepressant that should not be taken with alcohol. 

She is now charged with a DWI and fleeing police. 

On Jan. 1, 2008, Jacobson, who then went by Elizabeth Rhodes, killed Maggie Lopez when she drove the wrong way on Highway 10 in Arden Hills and collided head-on with a Ramsey County squad car driven by Lopez’s husband, Deputy Joe Lopez, who survived the crash. Her blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was .19. 

Jacobson was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular and served five years in prison.

In May, Jacobson was arrested for driving drunk yet again when she allegedly showed up drunk for happy hour at Trappers Bar and Grill in Lino Lakes, with her 10-year old daughter.  She blew a .20 and had an open bottle of vodka under her seat.

She was charged with first-degree DWI.