A Deer River woman is charged with criminal vehicular homicide after the pickup she was driving swerved head-on into a car on Highway 2 in Grand Rapids, killing the other driver, moments after a man climbed in through the truck’s rear window, according to a criminal complaint.
Kerri Ellen Hart, 38, faces one count of criminal vehicular homicide for operating a vehicle in a grossly negligent manner. The complaint was filed Aug. 27 in Itasca County District Court.
According to the complaint, officers were sent at about 4:33 p.m. on Aug. 22 to a head-on crash near Northwest 4th Street and 17th Avenue Northwest in Grand Rapids. The driver of a Chevrolet Impala, a woman, was trapped in her car and was pronounced dead at the scene. Hart was found in the passenger seat of the red Chevrolet Colorado pickup, with a man on the floor of the passenger side.
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Surveillance video and witnesses described what happened minutes earlier at the Lucky 7 gas station, the complaint says. While the man was inside, Hart slid into the driver’s seat and drove off at high speed. He ran after the truck, climbed into the bed and punched out the rear window as she sped onto Highway 2 without stopping at stop signs. Witnesses said the truck swerved into the oncoming car right after he got into the cab, with no braking.
One witness said the man was yelling at Hart to stop as he banged on the back window. Another said the car that was hit had been going about 30 mph and had done nothing wrong, according to the complaint.
In an interview after she left the hospital, Hart told a trooper that she and the man had just broken up and that he had hit her in the face earlier that day, threatened to hurt her and would not let her drive, the complaint says. She said she moved to the driver’s seat at the gas station so she could take the truck back to the home she had come from and get help. She said she did not know he was in the truck bed until he broke the window, that he punched her in the head once he got into the cab, and that she does not remember the crash.
The man told a trooper he did not remember the crash and believed he had been driving. When he learned the truck had swerved into the other car and killed its driver, he said he should be the one charged because it was clearly his fault, according to the complaint.
Hart gave troopers different accounts of when she had last used methamphetamine, the complaint says; the man said methamphetamine found in the truck was his. The truck’s owner said he had not given either of them permission to take it.
Hart was seriously hurt and was flown to a hospital in Duluth. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $20,000 fine or both, according to the complaint.
