An Inver Grove Heights man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for an October crash that killed a Roseville nurse.
Nicholas Anthony Indehar, 22, pleaded guilty Friday to a count of criminal vehicular homicide in Dakota County District Court. A second count was dropped. District Judge Patrice Sutherland sentenced Indehar to 50 months in prison.
Prosecutors said he smelled of alcohol after running through an Inver Grove Heights stop sign and hitting a vehicle driven by Kim Marie Caswell. The 42-year-old woman died at the scene.
“We are pleased to have brought this man to justice for this senseless crime on our roads,” Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said in a prepared statement.
Witnesses told investigators that Indehar’s car was speeding northbound on Dawn Avenue about 3 p.m. Oct. 24 when he ran the stop sign at 70th Street and hit Caswell’s minivan, according to a criminal complaint. The minivan was pushed into a utility pole that cracked in half and fell on the vehicle.
Xcel Energy had to shut off power to the lines on the vehicle’s roof before Caswell could be reached, investigators said. She died before rescue workers could remove her.
Officers found Indehar wandering around the vehicles with bloodshot and watery eyes, according to the complaint. His forehead was cut, his speech was slurred, and he smelled of alcohol. An open, mostly empty bottle of rum was found in his car.
Married and the mother of three children, Caswell was a University of Minnesota graduate who worked as a nurse at the school’s Masonic Children’s Hospital.
Indehar’s previous convictions include fourth-degree driving while intoxicated in September 2011 and felony drug possession and driving after revocation in June 2013.