- March 6, 2025
Jamesine Fischer, who pled guilty in February to leaving the scene of an accident involving death, was sentenced Wednesday to 25 months in prison.
Fischer said during testimony at her sentencing hearing that she initially thought she hit a dog as she drove along Columbia Lane at about 6 p.m. Nov. 10, 2011. She got out of her PT Cruiser and saw a miniature poodle looking confused in the street.
Then, she saw Francoise Pecqueur lying in the swale. Fischer assumed the woman had fallen, she said. She approached Pecqueur, who was bleeding from the mouth, and turned her head so she would not choke. Neighbors started coming out of their homes. A man asked if anyone had called 9-1-1, and Fischer asked if he would do it.
Paramedics arrived on scene, but law enforcement did not. Fischer said she stayed until emergency medical technicians placed Pecqueur in an ambulance. “We’ll take it from here,” they told her. So she left.
Asisstant State Attorney Russ Bausch showed Fischer photos of the damage to her car — which included a crack in the windshield extending from the driver’s to the passenger’s side of the vehicle — and asked if it was reasonable to assume Pecqueur’s four-pound dog could have caused that damage.
“I don’t know if I was confused or in shock or just in denial,” Fischer said. “I truly didn’t believe that I could hit a person.”
Fischer said she thought the dog’s retractable leash had struck her windshield. Bausch asked if the impact made a loud noise or shook her car, but Fischer insisted she only remembered hearing a thud.
At least two of Pecqueur’s hairs were found embedded in Fischer’s windshield. Bausch asked how that could happen without a greater impact than a thud.
“My hairs fall out all the time,” Fischer said.
“But your hair is not embedded in anybody’s windshield, Mrs. Fischer,” Baush said.
Fischer said that after she left the scene, she went to a friend’s house, where she had plans to have dinner before visiting that friend’s husband in the hospital. But she didn’t stay for dinner and instead went home.
When her husband, Flagler County School Board member John Fischer, came home, he looked at the damage on Jamesine Fischer’s car and listened to her story. The two returned to the scene of the accident, looking for law enforcement, but found none, John Fischer said. So, the couple returned home and prayed all night, he said.
At about 5:30 the next morning, John Fischer called police about the crash. Eventually, he passed the phone to his wife.
Bausch asked why the Fischers did not report the accident sooner. Jamesine Fischer said she was in denial about what really happened. By the morning, though, she realized what must have happened.
“Is it true,” Bausch said, “that you waited because you needed time to get the alcohol out of your system?”
“No,” Fischer said. “No, no.”
“The fact of the matter is, you do, and did, have an alcohol problem,” Bausch said, referencing Fischer’s involvement with Alcoholics Anonymous and testimony from clerks at a gas station near the accident scene who said Fischer would sometimes purchase small bottles of wine and sit in her car talking on the phone.
Both Fischer and her husband said she had not consumed alcohol the night of the crash. Bausch implied that the delayed reporting was to avoid a DUI manslaughter charge, which is a second-degree felony and carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years. Jamesine Fischer asked why she would return to the scene of the accident if that were the case.
The charge to which Fischer pled guilty — leaving the scene of an accident involving death — is a first-degree felony, punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Fischer’s plea agreement mandated a minimum sentence of 21 months and a maximum sentence of 36 months.
Fischer cried throughout her sentencing hearing, as did some members of the large audience, which included many friends of Pecqueur’s. At one point, a bailiff had to escort one of Fischer’s crying friends from the courtroom.
Pecqueur’s friends, neighbors and family testified at the hearing, speaking of a woman who was active, friendly and loved to dance.
“I understand how unfortunate things can occur,” said Catherine Vyvyan, Pecqueur’s daughter. “But I can never understand how someone could see a person lying in the ditch and not call 9-1-1.”
Vyvyan said she went to see her mother in the hospital after the accident, but that she was nearly unrecognizable because her face was so swollen. She had to wait 12 hours to learn how her mother sustained those injuries.
Fischer said now she knows she should have called the police sooner, but that at the time she thought the accident had been sufficiently reported.
“This accident is a nightmare that I will regret for the rest of my life,” Fischer said. “I am truly sorry for all those that have been affected by it.”
A parade of friends and family members testified on Fischer’s behalf at her sentencing. She cried during some testimonies and mouthed “thank you” to others as they sat at the stand. They all said much the same thing: that Fischer was a good woman, devoted to her church and to helping others. Before Circuit Judge J. David Walsh sentenced Fischer, he said he thought she and the victim would have been friends.
“I say that not lightly, and not to offend, but because I think highly of both,” Walsh said. “It’s a very sad situation, and one of the sadder parts about my job, when I have to impose a sentence on those who have committed offenses, but are not bad people.”
After she serves 25 months, Fischer will have her driver’s license revoked for three years and will be on probation for 10 years. The terms of that probation prohibit her from drinking alcohol or having contact with the victim’s family. Fischer will be subject to periodic searches and testing to ensure she is following the terms.
