A Boyds man will spend five years in prison for a drunk-driving crash that killed 71-year-old Mary Elizabeth Moody in Germantown last year, after investigators determined he was going roughly 94 mph with a blood alcohol concentration of .20 when his car slammed into hers. Brody Richardson, who was driving a 2021 Mazda 3, struck Moody's 2018 Subaru Forester as she turned left, in a collision that evidence shows he never tried to stop.
According to The National Desk, a Montgomery County judge sentenced Richardson to 10 years in prison but suspended all but five, adding five years of supervised probation once he's released. Richardson, 20 and of Boyds, pleaded guilty on Aug. 5 to grossly negligent manslaughter by motor vehicle and homicide by motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, the outlet reported. A Montgomery County police press release at the time identified him as 19 years old, a discrepancy that remains unresolved in the public record.
Surveillance Video Traced the Night Back to a Beer and Wine Shop
The crash happened on July 21, 2025, when Richardson was driving north on Great Seneca Highway and struck Moody's Subaru as she turned onto Mateny Road. Surveillance footage and a receipt showed Richardson had consumed five beers at Travilah Beer & Wine between 6:57 p.m. and 10:17 p.m. that night, the station reported, and he later admitted to drinking alcohol and using marijuana before getting behind the wheel.
Two store employees, William Bolek and Richard Bolek, pleaded guilty to criminal charges for selling alcohol to Richardson while he was under the legal drinking age, per the same account from The National Desk. The men were awaiting sentencing, according to the outlet, which did not report what penalties they might face.
Data Recorder Showed Acceleration, Not Braking
Data pulled from Richardson's Mazda painted a grim picture of the final seconds before impact. The vehicle's event data recorder showed him accelerating from about 83 mph to 94 mph in the five seconds leading up to the crash, according to Daily Voice. Detectives found no evidence that he ever applied the brakes before hitting Moody's Subaru, the outlet reported.
Maryland law makes clear why prosecutors pursued the charges they did. Under the state's homicide-by-vehicle statute, a person may not cause another's death through negligent operation of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, a violation classified as homicide by motor vehicle or vessel while under the influence of alcohol, according to the Maryland General Assembly.
A County Pushing to Cut Serious Crashes
The case lands amid a broader push in Montgomery County to reduce traffic deaths. Serious and fatal crashes on the county's high injury network corridors dropped 29% in fiscal year 2025 compared with the pre-COVID-19 years of 2015 to 2019, according to Montgomery County's Vision Zero program. The county also maintains an open-data portal tracking DUI incidents across its jurisdiction.
For Moody's family, the sentencing closes one chapter of a case that began with a turn onto Mateny Road and ended with the death of 71-year-old Mary Elizabeth Moody. The crash remains a stark reminder of how quickly an evening of drinking turned fatal.
