A Cincinnati man whose truck lost a tire, causing an 18-year-old to crash on Interstate 75 in Northern Kentucky last summer, has been charged after police said they later learned he was aware of the collision but drove away.
Lauren Collins, an 18-year-old University of Kentucky student from Independence, was driving south on I-75 in Boone County when a northbound pickup truck’s tire crossed the concrete barrier and struck her windshield, according to a report. press release from the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene at 12:15 a.m. on July 16. Collins later died at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
Although police did not initially know who the driver of the pickup was, the sheriff’s office said Ricky A. Raider, 37, notified the Independence Police Department on July 22 that he was the driver. Raider reportedly told police at the time that he had lost a tire on the highway the previous weekend, “but did not believe his tire had hit anyone.”
However, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office said investigators later learned that Raider spoke to an inmate at the Bullitt County Detention Center on the same day the crash occurred and told the woman he spoke to in a recorded phone call that he saw the tape Collins’ tire hit. vehicle “and knew that the collision was likely to result in someone being injured or killed.”
“After the collision, his tire rested near the concrete barrier that separates northbound and southbound I-75,” the news release said. Raider allegedly reinstalled the tire on his truck and left.
He was indicted June 4 by a Boone County grand jury on one felony count of leaving the scene of an accident/failure to render aid resulting in death or serious bodily injury. He was also indicted on a charge of first-degree persistent felony offender.
He was being held at the Boone County Detention Center on a $40,000 bond. He was arrested on June 11, according to the prison’s website.
