"She is literally one of the worst DUI offenders we have ever dealt with." Such is the pronouncement of an Illinois police chief after Monday's arrest of Tasha Lynn Schleicher. Someone called 911 after allegedly seeing the 41-year-old Minnesota woman passed out in her car at a Riverside gas station. Police arrived to find her "in total disarray" and attempting to put kerosene into her car's tank. The Post Bulletin reports she told officers she "couldn't find" her 11 children, leading police to scour local hotels. It was only later that they'd learn the truth: That all but one of Schleicher's children were removed from her custody in the fall after a September DUI arrest in Rochester, Minn.; five of her kids were in the car as she hit a guard rail and kept on driving. Police arrived to find her nursing her youngest.
Illinois and Minnesota aren't the only states where she has allegedly gotten behind the wheel while drunk: She's racked up 12 DUI-related arrests, per NBC Chicago, there and in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana, California, and Oregon. Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel described her as "kind of proud of her notoriety"—eventually. He says Schleicher was "very uncooperative," so much so that it took a full day to complete her background check due to the lies she kept spinning. Once she was identified, he says the bragging began: "She told us to Google her." CBS Chicago reports she also allegedly told officers she was having a miscarriage; she was brought to a hospital and shown to be neither pregnant nor miscarrying. Weitzel's theory is that she was hoping to make a run for it from the hospital. (More DUI stories.)