A Fergus Falls man is charged with criminal vehicular homicide after a head-on crash on U.S. Highway 59 near Erhard on Sept. 6 killed the driver of the other vehicle, a woman, according to a criminal complaint filed in Otter Tail County.
Jacob Lee Thatcher, 25, faces two felony counts, one for operating a motor vehicle in a grossly negligent manner and one for operating a vehicle in a negligent manner while under the influence of a combination of alcohol, a controlled substance and THC. The complaint was filed Sept. 10 in Otter Tail County District Court.
Officers responded about 4:50 p.m. to a report of the crash and found a black Volkswagen and a silver Buick stopped head-on in the northbound lane, the complaint says. Thatcher, who was driving the Volkswagen, was taken to a hospital. The woman driving the Buick was confirmed dead at the scene.
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A witness who had been driving ahead of Thatcher told a state trooper that Thatcher was weaving, nearly into the ditch one moment and across into the oncoming lane the next, the complaint says. She said that after she passed the Buick, which was traveling north, she looked in her mirror and saw the Buick close to Thatcher before he suddenly swerved head-on into it. She said it had been lightly sprinkling but there were no visibility or road-condition problems.
At the hospital, Thatcher told the trooper he had been driving at least 75 miles per hour in a 60 mile-per-hour zone and was swerving while dealing with unbalanced tires and bad calipers, the complaint says. He said the vehicle shook violently at around 70 miles per hour, which he called the “death wobble,” and that he knew about the problems but had not had the money to fix them.
Thatcher said he drank a “shooter” of 99-proof liquor in his vehicle earlier that day before a delivery run and felt buzzed for about 12 minutes, and that he had used THC the night before through a vape pen he had with him, according to the complaint. The trooper noted that his eyes were bloodshot and watery. The complaint says he told the trooper he was not drunk.
Thatcher said he became impatient with a slower vehicle ahead of him and was going to pass it, and that he then remembered hitting the other vehicle head-on in its lane, the complaint says. A search warrant was obtained for a sample of his blood, which was collected and sent to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for analysis.
Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, according to the complaint.
