Charges: Man Was Drinking Prior To Fatal Burnsville Crash
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A 25-year-old man has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide in the crash that killed a 34-year-old Richfield woman last weekend.
According to Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom, Neftali Ramirez admitted to authorities that he had been drinking prior to the March 8 crash.
The crash happened shortly before 2 a.m. on the intersection of Highway 13 and Nicollet Avenue in Dakota County.
The State Patrol said Ramirez, of Bloomington, was driving a Volkswagen Jetta east on the highway at a high rate of speed when he slammed into the driver's side of a Toyota Corolla, which was stopped in the northbound lane of Nicollet Avenue.
The two vehicles then went down an embankment toward a retaining pond.
The driver of the Corolla, 34-year-old Erin Randall of Richfield, died at the scene. Randall, a 2007 Fulbright scholar to Bangladesh, served on the board of directors for the Minnesota Chapter of the Fulbright Association and spoke four languages.
Ramirez suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
While he was being taken to the hospital, according to the complaint, he admitted he had been drinking whiskey and beer at a bar in Bloomington.
"This appears to be another tragic example of impaired driving that has claimed a life on our roads," Backstrom said.
Ramirez appeared in court Thursday. Bail has been set at $150,000 without conditions, or alternately to be released on his own with an Alco-Sensor.