Delaware County man arrested on suspicion of drunken driving

A 22-year-old Delaware County man who killed his best friend during a 2006 underage drinking party was arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of drunken driving after he drove his car into a Chester County house, police said.

West Goshen Township police said Sean Owen O'Neill Jr. of Glen Mills was driving at 12:55 a.m. in the 800 block of Westtown Road when he lost control of his black Cadillac, which traveled down an embankment, smashed into two cars, and then crashed into the garage of the house. No one was injured, police said.

O'Neill gained notoriety when he accidentally shot and killed Scott Sheridan, a Cardinal O'Hara High School classmate, during an unchaperoned drinking party at the O'Neills' Chester County home on Sept. 1, 2006. O'Neill was adjudicated as a juvenile and completed two residential treatment programs before being released in 2009.

The shooting death prompted a search of the family's palatial Willistown Township home that led to a federal firearms conviction for Sean Owen O'Neill Sr., 51, an undocumented immigrant and former Delaware County pub owner who was recently deported to Ireland after serving an 18-month jail sentence.

Another of the family's three children, Roisin O'Neill, 26, has also had problems with alcohol abuse. She is serving a 5-to-10-year prison term for causing a crash on Sept. 19, 2008, that killed Patricia Murphy Waggoner, 63, a grandmother from Brimfield, Mass. Police said Roisin O'Neill was driving drunk in the wrong direction on I-476 in Plymouth Township.

West Goshen Township police said officers arriving at the accident scene Thursday morning found O'Neill sitting in the driver's seat, trying to move the vehicle.

O'Neill failed field sobriety tests, police said, adding that blood was taken for testing. He was released to await a summons on drunken-driving and related offenses, police said.