Kerrville Woman Jailed on $110,000 Bond After Suspected Drunk Driving Crash Injures 90-Year-Old Woman and Her Son

KERRVILLE, Texas — A 43-year-old Kerrville woman is being held on a combined $110,000 bond after police say she struck a 90-year-old woman and the woman's 71-year-old son with her vehicle in a McDonald's parking lot while intoxicated.

Jessica Patterson, 43, of Kerrville was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and two counts of aggravated assault, the Kerrville Police Department said in a revised news release issued after the department initially withheld her name. Jail records identify her as Jessica Noel Patterson and show she was booked into the Kerr County Main Jail on Monday, Aug. 31, on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of driving while intoxicated — second offense. All three were warrantless, on-view arrests.

Kerrville Police Department officers responded that day to the parking lot of the McDonald's at 600 Sidney Baker St. after a suspected impaired driver hit the two pedestrians, the department said in a news release.

The 90-year-old woman was transported to a San Antonio hospital with serious injuries and is listed in stable condition. Her son was treated at the scene by emergency medical personnel and released.

The driver was evaluated at the scene and arrested, police said.

The charges

Jail records set bond at $50,000 on each aggravated assault count and $10,000 on the DWI charge — all surety bonds.

Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon is a second-degree felony in Texas, punishable by two to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. In vehicle cases, the deadly weapon is the vehicle itself, and a deadly weapon finding carries consequences beyond the sentence: it restricts when a defendant becomes eligible for parole.

The DWI count is charged as a second offense, a Class A misdemeanor that alleges at least one prior conviction for driving while intoxicated. A second-offense DWI carries up to a year in county jail, a fine of up to $6,000, and a mandatory minimum jail term.

The police news release lists the charges as driving while intoxicated and two counts of aggravated assault. The jail booking record is more specific on both, identifying the felonies as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and the intoxication charge as a second offense. Charges recorded at booking are the arresting agency's initial filing and can change before a case reaches a grand jury.

The booking record lists aliases of Jessica Norman and Jessica Noel Norman.

The record showed no release date, indicating Patterson remained in custody.

An arrest is not a conviction. Patterson is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court, and the charges filed at booking may be changed, upgraded, or dropped as the case moves to the district attorney and a grand jury.

The Kerrville Police Department says its investigation is continuing and that additional information will be released as it becomes available.

The Cost of One Drink Too Many

Impaired driving is not an abstraction in Kerr County. In 2024, the most recent year for which the Texas Department of Transportation has published county-level figures, Kerr County recorded 50 crashes involving a driver under the influence of alcohol. Two of those crashes were fatal, killing two people. Two more left four people with serious injuries.

Statewide that same year, 1,053 people died in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver — an average of nearly three deaths a day. Most of the dead were not the drinking driver. TxDOT's breakdown shows 698 of them were riding in vehicles that someone else was driving, and 128 more fell into other categories, including people struck outside a vehicle.

Texas has not gone a single day without a traffic death since Nov. 7, 2000 — a streak now approaching 26 years, and the reason behind TxDOT's ongoing #EndTheStreakTX campaign.

A DWI conviction in Texas can carry fines and fees of up to $17,000, jail time, and a suspended license. When someone is hurt, the exposure grows sharply: charges can escalate to felonies carrying years in prison, as they have in this case.

The math is simple, and it does not change. A rideshare across Kerrville costs less than a tow. A designated driver costs nothing at all. Plan the nuggets before the first drink, not after the last one.

These figures are provided as public safety context and are not a statement about the outcome of this pending case.