39-year-old Man Charged in Deadly Saint Paul Hit-And-Run

Nov 17

A man accused of running over a woman walking with her husband and two dogs in Saint Paul last week is now charged with criminal vehicular homicide.

Prosecutors say 39-year-old Michael Kentrell Smith accelerated through a stop sign at Saint Anthony Avenue and Aldine Street, hit the woman in the crosswalk and kept driving.

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The victim, identified by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner as 30-year-old Amber O. Deneen, of Saint Paul, was pronounced dead less than an hour after the crash.

Officers were sent to the intersection around 5:14 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, and found Deneen just west of the crosswalk with labored breathing and a severe right leg injury. They applied a tourniquet before she was taken to the hospital, where she died at 5:58 p.m. Her husband told police they were walking north across the crosswalk toward University Avenue when Smith, driving a black SUV, approached the stop sign and slowed but didn’t stop. He then accelerated through the intersection and hit Deneen and both dogs, court documents say. The dogs were later found and brought home.

A driver who was behind Smith said she saw the couple and their dogs enter the crosswalk before Smith reached the stop sign. She said she honked but Smith kept rolling, ran over Deneen “like a speed bump,” and continued west.

Officers found a broken plastic piece left behind by Smith that matched a 2007–2014 Chevrolet. Surveillance video captured the thud of the impact, honking, screaming and a driver accelerating away at high speed. Investigators identified the SUV as a Chevrolet Suburban registered to Smith. Video from the Speedway on Snelling Avenue then showed him pulling in at 5:14 p.m., getting out and examining the front of the Suburban before going inside.

*After a fatal pedestrian crash in Saint Paul on Nov. 13, 2025.* ***MN CRIME PHOTO***

*Police stopping the Suburban on eastbound I-94 near Mounds Blvd. on Saturday, Nov. 15.* ***via MnDOT***

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Two days after the crash, officers arrested Smith while he was driving the same Suburban. It was missing a piece near the front passenger tire that matched what was recovered at the scene. He was wearing the same clothes seen in surveillance video earlier that evening.

Smith agreed to speak with investigators after being read his rights. He first said he wasn’t involved in a crash, then said he thought he may have hit cones, not a person. Smith said he heard someone yell “Hey!” but thought they were yelling at someone else. He told investigators that after the impact, he accelerated because he thought something was stuck under the vehicle. When investigators left the room, Smith looked at a photo of Deneen and said he didn’t remember hitting anyone, but apologized.

Video shown to Smith later captured him leaving the crash scene at high speed and nearly entering University Avenue in the wrong direction, the court documents say. He then said the memory “came back to him” and again suggested he hit bike lane separators. Investigators noted those cones sit on the left side of the road, but Deneen was run over on the passenger side of his SUV.

The medical examiner determined Deneen died from multiple traumatic injuries caused by the collision. Smith told investigators he eventually admitted to his sister and mother he “might have hit somebody.”

Court records list a prior DWI conviction for Smith from 2020. He is being held on $1 million bail, with a first court appearance set for Nov. 18.

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