Driver accused of killing pedestrian in Nanakuli says she ‘blacked out’
The driver accused of killing a pedestrian in a hit-and-run crash in Nanakuli in 2016 told a state jury today that she blacked out after something fell on her windshield.
That something was 19-year-old Kaulana Werner, a 2015 Kamehameha Schools graduate on break from college in Kansas.
Myisha Lee Armitage, 26, is on trial for negligent homicide and fleeing the scene. Both crimes are class B felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
She told the jury that before the crash, she had dinner, one mai tai and one shot of tequila with her boyfriend in Ko Olina. After that she went back to her workplace in Nanakuli to retrieve something she had left there and was going home in Ewa Beach.
Armitage said she was driving about 55-60 mph on Farrington Highway, slowed to 50-55 mph to pull in behind another vehicle, heard “a really loud bang” then blacked out. She said when she came to her car was up the road and no longer running.
She told police at the scene that she had been drinking.
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Police had a phlebotomist take a sample of her blood, which showed a blood alcohol concentration of 0.13. The legal threshold for drunk driving is 0.08 BAC.
Werner’s death prompted state lawmakers to pass a law last year that allows judges to double the negligent homicide sentence of a driver who also fled the scene.