Kent woman killed by DUI driver after lying in road amid fight with husband, police say

KENT, Wash. – Police said a woman who was hit and killed by an SUV in Kent this weekend had laid down in the road during an argument with her husband, who she had hit with a meat tenderizer.

The SUV’s driver was drunk at the time, police said, and was arrested on suspicion of vehicular homicide. Q13 News usually doesn’t name suspects unless they’ve been charged.

According to probable-cause documents filed by Kent police:

The woman’s husband called 911 late Saturday night to report that she was hitting him. During the call, police learned about an auto-pedestrian collision in the area just as the man began crying and saying something about his wife.

When police arrived on 106th Ave. S.E., they found the woman dead on the side of the road after being run over by a Ford Expedition. They learned she had been chasing her husband with the meat tenderizer, but stopped and laid down in the road before being hit.

Police said they talked to the driver, who told them he hadn’t realized he hit anybody but stopped because he saw people waving at him in the mirror.

Police thought the driver might be drunk. They gave him a blood test and he blew a .21, well above the legal limit of .08. The man told police he’d had three beers and three shots at a friend’s birthday party.

Police said when they got to the station, the driver “forgot he had hit and killed someone despite being told so at the scene.”