CORONA - On this, her fifth drunken driving conviction, Michelle Lynne Coplen was found guilty of murder Wednesday for a crash that killed a 5-year-old Lake Elsinore girl.

As verdicts were read in a Corona courtroom, tears of relief flowed from members of the family of Sierra Heidrich. The girl died after a pickup driven by Coplen veered into oncoming traffic on Corydon Street and slammed into the vehicle in which Sierra was riding on Dec. 10, 2006.

Sierra was strapped into a back-seat booster seat in a Nissan Sentra driven by her aunt, Amber Heidrich. They were headed home that night after making, wrapping and exchanging Christmas gifts earlier in the day, Amber Heidrich testified at the trial.

"Overwhelmed" was how Anita Heidrich, the girl's grandmother, described the feeling upon hearing that Coplen was guilty.

"We are all relieved that she won't be able to do something like this again," she said.

The eight-woman, four-man jury started deliberating Tuesday morning and advised the court they had verdicts shortly after their lunch break Wednesday afternoon.

Anita Heidrich said the family had been on "pins and needles" once the deliberations began. "We've been praying and praying," she said. "Sierra was the joy of my life."

Desiree Miller, Sierra's 23-year-old aunt, was among several family members who sat through much of the trial. She said it was "very difficult to watch" a lot of the testimony concerning the death of her niece.

With tears still welling up in her eyes, Miller smiled as she talked about Sierra, remembering what she called the little girl's catch phrase.

"She used to always say, 'Thank you, Jesus, for all the love in my heart,'" Miller recalled.

Jurors found Coplen, 38, of Lake Elsinore, guilty of second-degree murder, along with five other felonies and two misdemeanors. Coplen could be sent to prison for 25 years to life when she returns to court next month to be sentenced.

The prosecution filed the murder count because of Coplen's four previous misdemeanor drunken driving convictions. Deputy District Attorney Chris Bouffard told jurors during the trial that Coplen had to know the dangers of drinking and driving but still did so the night of the fatal crash.

When asked outside the courtroom Wednesday about those four prior convictions and if he thought Coplen may have slipped through the cracks of the justice system, the prosecutor responded:

"This reflects that we live in a very tolerant society. And there will always be people who take advantage of society's tolerance," Bouffard said. "The (justice) system can't make somebody care."

During the trial, Coplen's defense attorney, Renee Rupp, hoped to convince the jury that her client either was not driving or that she was not intoxicated when the crash happened. She contended that the man with Coplen that night, Thomas Hendrix - whose father owned the pickup - was driving.

Hendrix also was interviewed by police and said Coplen was driving. He testified during the trial, telling jurors he was drunk the entire weekend and now remembers nothing about the night of the crash.

Jurors said outside the courtroom Wednesday that Hendrix had no credibility at all to them as a witness.

The most convincing evidence for them, they all agreed, was Coplen's own statements made during an interview with Lake Elsinore police just hours after the crash.

During the videotaped interview, Coplen admitted several times that she was driving, not Hendrix. She was given multiple chances to change her story, including after an officer told her that a young girl might die.

"It was just overwhelming," one juror said of the evidence against Coplen.

The 49-year-old Riverside man, who asked that his name not be used, said jurors listened to Coplen's entire interview during deliberations.

The juror said he and his fellow jurors did not believe the defense argument that Coplen was not intoxicated and that all the jurors believed she knew the dangers of drinking and driving from her previous convictions.

The prosecutor commended the jury for getting past what he called a confusing defense theory.

"It was designed to be confusing, but (jurors) stayed with the evidence and took a dangerous person off the street," Bouffard said.

"But nothing can bring Sierra Heidrich back, and that's an injustice," he said.

- Contact staff writer John Hall at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2628, or jhall@californian.com.