Out of the hospital and into jail, a Bowling Green man is behind bars following a fatal crash involving alcohol earlier this month.

It's not the first, second or even third time 45-year-old Terence Bell has been arrested.

But this time his charges are much worse.

A tragic crash on January 10th left Dawn Abbott dead after she and her husband were driving that morning.

Allegedly driving drunk, 45-year-old Terence Bell slammed head-on into their truck, killing Abbott and seriously injuring himself.

Today he's charged with her murder.

"You have someone, who in essence, is a habitual drunk driver. They were a loaded gun waiting to go off and unfortunately it did," said Chris Cohron, commonwealth attorney for Warren County.

That's how Cohron describes 45-year-old Terence Bell.

Police say Bell crossed the center line on Cave Mill Road after a night of drinking earlier this month, killing Bowling Green resident Dawn Abbott.

"When you look at the amount of times a drunk driver will drive drunk before their caught, it's staggering," Cohron said.

Since 2008, Bell has had three DUI convictions in Warren County.

His fourth resulted in Abbott's death.

"Our county attorney's offices and our district courts are really somewhat handcuffed with the lenient structure of our DUI laws at the misdemeanor level," Cohron said.

In Kentucky, it takes three prior DUI convictions within a five-year-period for the fourth to become a felony.

That's a law Cohron says needs to be strengthened.

"There is some legislation that will be heard this session to make third-offense DUI's a felony as well as lengthen the look back period to ten years which would be be more appropriate."

That's Kentucky House Bill 121 and is being sponsored by a representative from Danville and Lawrenceburg.

As for Terence Bell, he has a preliminary hearing scheduled for Friday morning.