A teen driver faces a felony charge in connection with a three-car crash in Champlin last year that killed a 70-year-old woman and caused a pregnant driver to get an emergency C-section.
The driver, an 18-year-old who was 17 at the time of the crash, is charged with one count of criminal vehicular homicide.
According to a criminal complaint, the crash happened just before 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 23 at the intersection of West River Road and Pennsylvania Avenue North.
Witness video shared with police captured how a BMW sedan first rear-ended a Jeep SUV that had slowed down for a left-turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue. The collision pushed the Jeep into oncoming traffic, leaving a Ford SUV no time to stop before striking the Jeep.
The driver of the Jeep, 70-year-old Linda Jean Rodenberg Davis, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Ford, a 36-year-old pregnant woman, was taken to the hospital for an emergency C-section. Both the mother and child survived.
The teen who was driving the BMW said he did not see the Jeep slow down until it was too late and that the brakes on his car “are really slow,” the complaint states.
Police obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s phone. Data recorded on the device indicates he had opened a phone application and was actively using it shortly before the crash.
Despite the defendant reaching 18 years of age in the time since the crash, state attorneys planned to file a motion to prosecute the case in juvenile court.
