Angela Chao, the shipping industry CEO and sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was drunk when she drove into a pond and died in Texas last month.
JOHNSON CITY, Texas — Angela Chao, the shipping industry CEO and sister-in-law of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was drunk when she drove into a pond and died in Texas last month, according to a law enforcement report released Wednesday.
The investigation by the Blanco County Sheriff’s Office concluded that Chao’s death was an “unfortunate accident” and that her blood alcohol level was nearly three times the state’s legal limit.
Chao, 50, died the night of Feb. 10 after dining with a large group at a ranch in Johnson City, west of Austin. The report describes a frantic scene as friends and officers tried to pull Chao out of her Tesla after she dropped him backward into the water.
A friend told investigators that Chao called her at 11:42 p.m. and said the car was in the pond and she was stuck in it.
Law enforcement officers and firefighters were eventually able to pull her from the vehicle and to shore, where she was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m. on February 11. A toxicology test determined that Chao had a blood alcohol level of 0.233 grams per 100 milliliters, above the legal limit in Texas of 0.08 grams per 100 milliliters, the report said.
Chao was the chairman and CEO of her family’s shipping company, the Foremost Group, and the president of her father’s philanthropic organization, the Foremost Foundation. She lived in Austin, about 50 miles east of Blanco County.
Her eldest sibling, Elaine Chao, is married to McConnell and served as Secretary of Transportation under President Donald Trump and Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush.
Chao is survived by her husband, father and four sisters.