Thread: TULSA: Five killed in hit & run collision

Five killed in hit & run collision


Associated Press - November 10, 2007 2:35 PM ET

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - Detectives are questioning a suspect today in the hit & run deaths of 5 people outside a Tulsa nightclub.

Tulsa Police Department Sgt. B.A. Bradley says the suspect, who wasn't identified, was picked up for questioning around noon in connection with the victims' deaths Friday night.

The incident occurred at 11:04 p.m. in a street outside the nightclub.

Bradley says a woman riding a motorcycle lost control on loose gravel and put the vehicle on the pavement, injuring her head. A group of bystanders gathered in the street to help the woman when a speeding pickup truck approached them.

The woman and four others were struck by the truck. 3 of the victims died at the scene and two others died later at a hospital.

The names of the victims weren't immediately available.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed


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Woman arrested in deadly accident

by: CLIFTON ADCOCK World Staff Writer
11/11/2007 1:47 AM



She surrenders to police after realizing she struck and killed five people, officers report.



A Tulsa woman surrendered to police Saturday after a hit-and-run accident Friday night on Memorial Drive that left five people dead.

Kimberly Graham, 37, was taken into custody about 3 p.m. on five complaints of second-degree manslaughter and five counts of leaving the scene of a fatality accident. She was in the Tulsa Jail on Saturday evening with bond set at $175,000.

Police did not release the names of the victims -- three men and two women. However, funeral homes confirmed that three of the dead were Shannon Lacey, believed to be 36; De Anna Coatney, 42; and Ronnie Coatney, 49, all of Tulsa. A witness from the scene identified another victim as Casey Jones, 29.

Officer Jason Willingham said Graham turned herself in at Uniform Division East and was questioned by detectives. Police also recovered her pickup truck and were processing it for evidence.

"She felt like she hit something, but she wasn't sure," Willingham said. "When she started seeing news reports in the morning, she started putting two and two together."

A police report said officers were called about 11:05 p.m. Friday to the scene of a collision at 1200 S. Memorial Drive. The officers found that a motorcyclist had fallen and suffered a head injury while trying to leave the parking lot of the Backyard Bar. The victim was being assisted by four people from the bar and another business when all five were struck by a blue Dodge pickup that sped through the scene, police said.

Bystanders told police that the driver of the northbound pickup did not slow down after the collision and ran a red light on Memorial, an arrest report said.

Willingham said three of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene and two were pronounced dead at a hospital.

The bar's owner, Danny Bell, who was working Friday night when the accident occurred, said Saturday that he was friends with Lacey.

"He was a person who would bring you up no matter how bad you were feeling," Bell said. "Once you met him, you would wish you had met him 10 years before."

Bell said he had gone into the parking lot after the initial accident and was walking back into the bar when the crash occurred. "It sounded like a car hitting a tree at 55 mph," he said.

Upon seeing his friend Lacey after the accident, Bell said, he was thinking: "It's one of those moments that can't be happening. It's a nightmare that won't go away.

"Just thinking of how many crossroads this created for so many people; it left a lot of people without a daddy or a mama."

The police report states that Graham called 911 around 11:56 a.m. Saturday from a public phone outside Uniform Division East and told a dispatcher that she was "the one who killed the people on Memorial Drive last night."

Capt. Steve Odom, the first officer at the scene, was met by Graham, who walked up to him and said, "I was the driver of the car that killed five people last night," and "I was drinking and driving and thought I hit a car, but I killed five people," the report states.

Graham told Odom where her pickup was. It bore evidence that was consistent with the collision, the report said.

Graham also signed a statement that said she had consumed a vodka mixed drink at her house before she headed out to local bars. She said she thought she had sideswiped a vehicle while heading home on Memorial Drive but she did not stop, the report states.

"The reason I did not stop was because I had been drinking," the report quotes Graham as saying in her statement, adding that she "consumed one mixed drink, six beers and two shots the night of this incident."

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