An Ohio man’s claim that he didn’t know the tire that fell off his truck could have killed someone was dismantled by a year-old jailhouse phone call unearthed by investigators, police said. Lauren Collins, an 18-year-old sophomore studying fashion merchandising at the University of Kentucky, died from her injuries after a runaway tire crossed the concrete barrier on I-75 near the Ohio border. , breaking his windshield shortly after midnight in July. Sept. 16, 2023, according to the Boone County Sheriff’s Office.
Six days after the accident, Ricky A. Raider, 37, appeared before the Independence Police Department and admitted that he “lost a tire on the interstate last weekend, but he did not believe his tire had hit nobody,” the office said. he wrote in a June 21 press release.
However, a recording of a phone call between Raider and a female inmate at the Bullitt County Detention Center, about 100 miles from the police department, obtained by Sgt. Jeff Nagy of the Independence Police Department’s Accident Reconstruction Unit, painted a different picture of the collision that exposed the driver to criminal prosecution.
The night Collins was killed, Raider told the woman who called that a tire had come off his 1993 Ford F-250 earlier that night, The Boone County Sheriff’s Office wrote. He told the inmate that he “witnessed the tire colliding with Collins’ vehicle” and “knew that the collision likely resulted in someone being injured or killed.” He said he recovered the tire, which was left along the concrete barrier between the northbound and southbound lanes, placed it back in his truck and fled the scene.
“What he did was steal lug nuts from other wheels to secure that tire just so he could get it onto the road and get it off the highway,” said Maj. Philip Ridgell of the Boone County Sheriff’s Office. Fox 19.
On June 4, Raider was charged with leaving the scene of an accident/failure to render aid resulting in death or serious bodily injury and one count of repeat felony offense, the office wrote. He was booked into the Boone County Jail on June 12, where he remains on $40,000 bail, according to online jail records. He requested a public defender at his court appearance Wednesday, Fox 19 reported, and his next court date is scheduled for July 24.