Pregnant woman killed in fiery wreck when man fleeing shooting runs red light, cops say
A 20-year-old man is accused of shooting his brother in the leg and then running a red light a short time later, setting off a fiery wreck that killed a pregnant woman, Utah police said.
The man left the scene of the wreck, which happened at about 9:10 p.m. Dec. 17 in Magna, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety. He later was arrested and booked into jail, officials said.
McClatchy News isn’t naming him pending criminal charges.
The chain of events started at about 8:40 p.m., when police in West Valley City – a roughly 7-mile drive southeast from Magna – were called to an apartment for a shooting, West Valley City police wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Officers arrived to find a 26-year-old man shot in the leg.
“Witnesses reported that the man’s brother had shot the victim during an argument,” police said.
The suspect was gone, but “a short time later, we were made aware that the suspect had crashed his vehicle in Magna,” according to police.
The wreck happened when the 20-year-old ran a red light in a Toyota Sequoia and collided with a Ford Escape, which caught fire, according to the Utah Department of Public Safety.
“After colliding with the Ford, the Sequoia continued forward striking a Kia Forte,” authorities said in a news release.
People in the Kia weren’t badly hurt, but the Ford Escape’s driver was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead, authorities said.
Cpl. Jared Heywood confirmed the woman, who was not publicly identified, was pregnant in a phone call with McClatchy News on Dec. 18.
The 26-year-old man who was shot in the leg earlier in the night was taken to the hospital in stable condition, police said.
KSLTV reported that the 20-year-old turned himself in to police after a brief manhunt.
Magna is a 14-mile drive southwest from Salt Lake City.
This story was originally published December 18, 2024 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Pregnant woman killed in fiery wreck when man fleeing shooting runs red light, cops say."
.JPG)