State Patrol: Hit-&-Run Driver Located In Fatal Isanti Co. Crash
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A tip from the relative of a hit-and-run driver led investigators to the person they say struck and killed a Princeton woman Monday night.
Patricia Wolter, 54, had just stepped out of a vehicle involved in a minor accident when she was hit along Highway 95 west of Cambridge.
"I just don't know how anybody could leave someone on the side of the road like that," Wolter's son, Matthew Turner, said.
He says his mother and brother were on their way to a hospital just after 10 p.m. Monday night. They were just west of Cambridge on Highway 95 when his brother, Joe, crossed the centerline -- sideswiping a Dodge Caravan.
"Both vehicles pulled over to the side of the road, at which time my mom got out of my brother's car, went to walk around to assist my brother to get out of the car when she was struck by another vehicle," Turner said.
That vehicle turned around but did not stop to assist Wolter, who Turner describes as a caring mother and grandmother with a huge heart.
"Our initial report was this was a hit and run, we had no description on the driver or the vehicle," Lt. Tiffani Schweigart of the Minnesota State Patrol said. "In fact, we were going to ask the media's help this morning in locating this vehicle and driver."
Turner says he and his family just want some answers, and those answers came by late Tuesday morning. A relative of the hit-and-run driver tipped off investigators. The female driver was coming home from work, but the patrol cannot yet say why she left the scene.
"Preliminarily now it seems like this driver may have initially stopped but then left the scene after stopping at the scene," Schweigart said. "So there are some questions we're going to need to answer as far as the reasons for that or what would explain that."
Investigators believe Wolter's son was driving under the influence. He suffered minor injuries.
Wolter's husband was also killed by a drunk driver seven years ago.
