Four DUIs, One Year to Kill: How a Driver Stayed on the Road

On June 14, 2025, a pickup truck veered head-on into a sedan on Highway 70 north of Marysville. The crash killed three people—17-year-old Michael Mallinson Jr. of Oroville, driver Clint Jon Waddell, and Waddell’s wife, Salma Julissa Ramirez-Lujano. Two others, including a one-year-old boy who lost both parents, survived with severe injuries. Nearly a year would pass before the driver, Christopher Rodgers, faced charges.

But here’s what makes this tragedy cut deeper: Rodgers wasn’t a first-time offender behind the wheel. Records obtained by KCRA 3 Investigates reveal he’d accumulated four DUI convictions over nearly 20 years—in 2008, twice in 2013, and again in 2025. Just one day before the deadly Marysville crash, he’d been charged with driving drunk after a separate accident near Plumas Lake on May 17, 2025. Yet he still had a valid driver’s license on June 14.

The reason? California’s ten-year window. Under state law, prior DUI convictions only trigger enhanced penalties if they occur within a decade. Since Rodgers’earlier convictions stretched back years, his most recent drunk-driving charge was treated as a first or second offense—a misdemeanor with probation, not the felony he might have faced. Meanwhile, the DMV’s 30-day suspension clock hadn’t yet run on his license when he got behind the wheel and crossed into oncoming traffic.

Police found no alcohol or drugs in Rodgers’system after the Marysville crash. He told investigators he was tired, that he might have blacked out or fallen asleep. He never hit the brakes. But the crash wasn’t classified as a DUI—just reckless driving. That distinction mattered legally, even if it meant nothing to the families who lost everything.

In June 2026, Rodgers pleaded guilty to all five felonies—three counts of vehicular manslaughter and two counts of reckless driving. Under a plea agreement, he faces six months to one year in jail, followed by probation. If he violates that probation, he could face up to ten years in prison. Yuba County District Attorney Clint Curry called it a chance for Rodgers“to reform on probation,”with the blessing of the victims’families.

Michael Mallinson Sr., whose son died in the crash, put it bluntly:“If you’re getting multiple DUIs, there shouldn’t be a time limit.”His family visits the cemetery nearly every day. They wear shirts bearing the faces of the three victims. They’ve turned their grief into advocacy for safer roads and accountability. But no plea agreement, no sentence, will bring their son home.