RANKIN COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – A teenager has been sentenced in connection to a fatal DUI crash in Rankin County.

Madison and Rankin Counties’ District Attorney Bubba Bramlett announced that Colby James Tackett, 19, was sentenced to 15 years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) for the crime of aggravated DUI resulting in death.

On October 7, 2022, Rankin County deputies responded to Highway 471 in Brandon for a head-on collision. The victim, 62-year-old Beverly Luckett, did not survive.

Investigators said the other driver, Tackett, who was 17, was intoxicated. They said he swerved his vehicle into the victim’s lane, resulting in the death of Luckett, a long-time Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.) advocate.

According to Bramlett, Tackett pled guilty to aggravated DUI resulting in death and was sentenced to the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison with the last 10 years of the sentence suspended pending compliance with all terms of supervised probation.

On September 24, 2022, only two weeks before the head-on collision, Bramlett said Tackett had been arrested by Flowood police for another underage drinking incident.

“This is a heart-wrenching case,” said Bramlett. “The Luckett family lost the matriarch of their family in a preventable tragedy. It was not lost on anyone that Mr. Tackett should have received the proverbial wake-up call when he was arrested for underage drinking a mere 13 days before he killed Ms. Luckett. Tackett will have to live with the consequences, and I anticipate that the emotional burden will be worse than the significant prison sentence.”