An Inver Grove Heights motorist accused of striking and killing a grandmother in January and then leaving the crash scene has been charged with two felonies.
Breyona Sadi Cotton, 30, was charged by summons Tuesday in Dakota County District Court with one count of leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death and one count of failure to notify police of a collision resulting in death. Cotton’s first court appearance has been set for Oct. 7.
The Jan. 5 crash along 80th Street near the intersection of Blaine Avenue in Inver Grove Heights killed 55-year-old Haimanot Gezahegne Gebremedhin, a mother of four and grandmother of two who was struck while walking to her home from the city’s community center.
About 19 hours after the crash, Cotton turned herself in to police and told investigators she believed she hit a deer, according to a criminal complaint. She said she only went to police after seeing a social media post about the crash and realizing that she had been in the area.
WHAT CHARGES SAY HAPPENED
According to the complaint:
About 5:40 p.m. Jan. 5, an Inver Grove Heights police officer doing routine radar patrol in the Simley High School parking lot was flagged down by motorists who said they had just saw what appeared to be a dead woman in the road near the intersection of 80th Street and Blaine Avenue.
Gebremedhin was found unconscious on the north side of 80th Street with injuries consistent with being struck by a vehicle. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
About 12:45 p.m. Jan. 6, Cotton and her attorney went to the police station.
Cotton told police that after she left a nearby McDonald’s drive-through, she turned west onto 80th Street and saw two police cars in a high school parking lot. She said she checked her speed and was traveling 40 mph.
She said she had a green light when approaching Blaine Avenue and that “out of nowhere,” she heard a collision and thought she had struck a deer.
She said that after the collision, she turned right onto Blaine Avenue and stopped, but didn’t see or hear anything and did not exit her vehicle, since she believed she hit a deer. She then drove home.
Inver Grove Heights police Cmdr. Josh Otis told the Pioneer Press in January that there was no evidence pointing to Cotton being impaired at the time of the crash. He said a search warrant to obtain a blood sample from Cotton on Jan. 6 was not pursued “because I thought we didn’t have probable cause for a search of somebody’s blood of impairment at that time, 19 hours after a crash.”
REPORT’S CONCLUSIONS
An accident-reconstruction report by the Minnesota State Patrol concluded that Gebremedhin’s legs struck the front bumper of Cotton’s car, forcing her entire body onto the hood, and that her head struck the lower portion of the windshield.
The report also concluded that Gebremedhin should have been visible to Cotton and that “any reasonable investigation into the collision would have revealed the victim’s body,” the complaint states.
In a statement Tuesday, Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said, “Any driver who strikes an object has an obligation to reasonably investigate what was struck and remain at the scene when the collision results in injury to or the death of a person.”
Before the crash, Gebremedhin and her husband had been working out at the community center. She decided to leave early and was walking home alone when she was hit about four blocks east of the community center.
After the collision, her husband called her cellphone, looking for her, police said. An officer answered and told him what had happened. He was picked up and taken to the crash scene.
According to Minnesota court records, Cotton was convicted of gross misdemeanor driving while impaired (refuse to submit to chemical test) in November 2010 in Washington County District Court. She was convicted of driving without a license in 2006.