A Gloucester woman entered an Alford plea of guilty to DUI-related involuntary manslaughter Friday in connection with the Oct. 11, 2013 death of 29-year-old Richard Gibson III. Melissa Ann Parks, 28, was the driver in a single-vehicle accident in which Gibson died.

The Alford plea was entered on behalf of Parks by her defense attorney, Amy P. VanFossen, in Gloucester Circuit Court. In an Alford plea, the defendant does not admit the act but admits the prosecution could likely prove the charge.

Visiting Judge James A. Cales Jr. of Portsmouth accepted the plea and found Parks guilty, and Parks answered “no” when Cales asked if there was anything she wanted to say.

Cales set Parks’s sentencing for Jan. 27. He also nolle prossed misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and driving with a revoked license that were pending against Parks.

In summarizing her evidence, Gloucester Commonwealth’s Attorney Holly Smith said the man who first came upon the fatal single-vehicle crash on Low Ground Road saw Parks in the driver’s seat of the pickup truck. He assisted her out of the truck and detected alcohol on her breath.

Smith said Parks told emergency medical technician Robert Hendley when he arrived on the scene that she had been drinking. Smith said Parks stated to Hendley, “he made me drive ’cause he was drunker than I was.’” Hendley had the roof of the truck removed to reach Gibson, Parks’s passenger, and soon pronounced Gibson dead at the scene.

Smith said EMT Frank Davis, who treated Parks as she was being transported to Riverside Regional Medical Center, also said Parks smelled of alcohol. According to Smith, when Davis told Parks that Gibson had died, Parks said “I told him I did not want to drive because I drank too much.”

Hospital personnel also noted they detected alcohol on Parks’s breath, Smith said, but they had been erroneously told Parks was a passenger in the crash so a toxicology screening was not ordered. Smith said two tubes of blood were drawn from Parks for medical treatment purposes.

In his investigation into the crash, Smith said state trooper B.H. Wintermantel learned Parks had been drinking and obtained a search warrant for the blood serum drawn from her at the hospital the night of the accident. He sent the sealed serum tube to the state Department of Forensic Science in Richmond.

Smith said a forensic science department chemist tested the serum and found it had an alcohol content of 0.18. Smith said a department toxicologist would have testified the equivalent of the hospital blood serum to blood alcohol content would be between a 0.14 and 0.16.

The investigation also included a search of the crashed truck, Smith said, which turned up a two-thirds empty bottle of whiskey, and a cell phone which Parks confirmed was hers.

Smith said the phone contained messages sent from it during the hours leading up to the crash, including one to Parks’s mother saying, “I’m drinking and this is the first time since the drunk in public.” Smith said, in an exchange of text messages, Parks’s mother begged her not to drink and offered to send someone to get her.

According to Smith, Parks replied, “I just want to get away for a night. I’m not drunk, just buzzed. I’ve been worse and had to drive a lot longer and I only have to go five minutes.”

At the request of VanFossen, Cales revoked Parks’s bond and court bailiffs took her into custody.