A pickup truck driver apparently was racing his wife home from a bar when he struck an SUV at a Twin Cities intersection and killed the other motorist, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday afternoon.
Aloysius Kenneth Johnson, 48, was charged in Anoka County District Court with criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash late Friday afternoon in Andover at 165th and 7th avenues NW.
Johnson, of Andover, remains jailed in lieu of $200,000 bail ahead of a June 23 court appearance. A message was left with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.
While officials have yet to release the name of the SUV driver who died, a close friend and neighbor identified her as 74-year-old Alice Stack, of Andover.
"We moved in at the same time 18½ years ago," said Kristine Iskierka, who lives two houses from where Stack did.
Iskierka said Stack "never married, but she was a grandma to multiple people and was our kids' grandma. She was more like a sister to me. She always said she was my Thelma and I was her Louise."
Iskierka said she got word of the crash close to their neighborhood from her daughter, "who was on the way home from work and saw it."
Stack, a lifelong Andover resident, "loved hanging out with her dog, Molli Ann, and visiting with her many friends in the neighborhood," Iskierka said. "She always had a story to tell or a treat to give you if you've gave her a visit. She loved her potted flowers and sitting on her porch and watching the people pass by with a cup of sweet tea."
According to the complaint:
Police sent to the scene of the crash saw the damaged pickup and noted it was unoccupied. Two people said they saw a man in a black T-shirt with ginger hair stumbling from the pickup into nearby woods.
Emergency medical responders removed Stack from her SUV, and she was declared dead at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids.
Police found Johnson walking nearby and showing obvious signs of intoxication. Johnson was told about the crash, and he said he was not driving.
Johnson's wife arrived at the scene and told police that the two of them had been eating and drinking that afternoon at the Back to the SRO Bar & Grill in Oak Grove. She said her husband had three or four vodka soda drinks.
She said she wanted him to ride home with her, but he drove his truck and followed behind her vehicle.
As they headed west on 165th, the wife explained, "she believed that [Johnson] was trying to beat her home and sped up" to turn north onto 7th as she turned south, the complaint read.
Johnson struck Stack's SUV as she was driving south on 7th.
The wife said she did not see the crash but returned to the scene after hearing about it.
During an interview after his arrest, Johnson confirmed his wife's account of his drinking at the bar and "denied remembering the accident and claimed to recall being in a field and running, and then was reportedly on his way back to the scene when arrested," the complaint continued.
Law enforcement collected a sample of Johnson's blood to be tested for his degree of intoxication.

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