On Dec. 4, 2021, throngs of people young and old were dispersing at the end of the annual Oceanside Christmas Parade, full of excitement from the festive lights and floats, when a gold Lexus ran into an elderly island couple, inflicting injuries on both that resulted in the woman’s death weeks later.

Now, after nearly four years of being out on bail following her arrest for DUI manslaughter, Summerplace resident Susan Harvey has taken a plea deal which will put her behind bars in state prison for three years.

Prior to Monday, all indications were that Harvey, now 75 years old, would rely on defense attorney Bobby Guttridge’s substantial skills in hopes of convincing a jury of her innocence.

Instead, Harvey and Guttridge took advantage of Circuit Judge Robert Meadows’ daily change of plea opportunities. Meadows instituted this, in an effort to cut down on the backlog of cases, for defendants who decide not to take their chances with a jury.

Harvey pleaded no contest to leaving the scene of an accident with injuries on Monday, and will plea to DUI manslaughter and DUI with serious property damage or injury at her October sentencing, as all DUI charges must be sentenced the same day as the plea.

“Susan Harvey entered a negotiated change of plea this morning.  Her sentencing date is set for Oct. 14, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. in Judge Meadows’ courtroom,” Assistant State Attorney Bill Long said.

Her prison term, he added, would be “followed by a 10-year term of probation, with all statutory DUI conditions, including a permanent driver’s license suspension and prohibition on the ownership or consumption of alcohol.”

The case had been scheduled for trial in 2024 and got postponed.  Now, Vero can put this Christmas tragedy behind it.

Harvey had not been watching the parade that night in 2021. She’d just left the Ocean Grill where she’d dined with friends and was maneuvering her car through the post-parade crowd on Ocean Drive, trying to get to A1A and eventually to her home just north of the Wabasso Causeway.

Police say Harvey – seemingly unaware she’d struck anyone – kept driving after she hit the man and woman, both in their 90s, who were walking with folding chairs to the Reef Ocean Resort where their vehicle was parked.

Harvey was finally stopped by people in the crowd banging on her car, including an off-duty Vero Beach police officer attending the parade with his family. Court records show Harvey failed police-administered roadside sobriety tests, and admitted to drinking two Cosmopolitans with dinner.

The female pedestrian in her 90s that police say Harvey hit suffered an inoperable fractured pelvis and broken ankle bones, and still had bruises from the crash when she died some weeks later, according to the 19th Circuit Medical Examiner’s report from her Feb. 16, 2022, autopsy.

The medical examiner concluded that she “died of Complications of Recent Blunt Force Injuries sustained as the pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle on Dec. 4, 2021.

“The decedent sustained injuries making her less and less mobile and never fully recovered from the trauma,” the report said.

The victim’s husband, who also was hospitalized from the crash, survived his injuries. The elderly couple struck by Harvey’s car opted to have their names redacted from court records in accordance with Florida’s Marsy’s law to protect victims. They moved from the island to Indian River Estates after the crash, so the wife could get round-the-clock care.

Judge Meadows has shown no mercy this year to defendants of advanced age convicted of serious felonies.

In June, Meadows sentenced Orchid resident and retired school teacher Elizabeth Jewkes-Danielsen to nearly 14 years in state prison – roughly a decade longer than the mandatory minimum – for vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter in a May 2022 crash which killed John’s Island resident Christopher Ingraham.

In July, Meadows sentenced 72-year-old former Holy Cross Catholic Church bookkeeper Deborah True to 10 years in prison plus 20 years probation for first-degree grand theft from parishioners. True, who had been out on bail for four years living in Colorado, pleaded no contest just as her case was to go to trial.