The driver accused of
killing a pedestrian in a hit-and-run crash in Nanakuli
in 2016 told a state jury Wednesday 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 on the day of the crash, she left her work at O’Reilly Auto Parts in Nanakuli about an hour early and met her boyfriend in Ko Olina for dinner. She also said she had one mai tai and one shot of tequila. After that she went back to Nanakuli to retrieve her debit card that she had left at work and was on her way home to Ewa Beach.
Armitage said she was driving about 55-60 mph on Farrington Highway, then slowed to 50-55 mph to pull behind a sport utility vehicle driven by Joshua Wakinekona, a regular O’Reilly customer who left the store ahead of her. She said the speed limit on that portion of the highway is 45 mph. The state says it is 35 mph.
Just after pulling behind Wakinekona’s SUV, Armitage said she “heard a really loud bang,” then blacked out. When she regained consciousness, she said her car was up the road, damaged and no longer running. Armitage said when she blacked out her car’s manual transmission was in fourth gear.
Armitage said she called Wakinekona.
“The first thing I asked him is if he hit something. He told me no. I asked him if he saw anybody or anything on the side of the road or crossing the road. He said no,” Armitage testified.
She said she told Wakinekona, “I guess I hit something then. He asked me what it was, I said I don’t know.”
The state says Armitage’s car struck Werner as he was crossing the highway near his home.
Armitage said she was following Wakinekona’s
SUV so closely that if the driver braked even a little she would have slammed into the back of the vehicle.
When police at the scene asked her if she had been drinking, Armitage said she told them she had. She said police subjected her to a field sobriety test at the scene even though she knew she had just been
in a serious accident and,
as part of the test, made her walk on uneven ground.
Police arrested Armitage and took her to the Honolulu Police Department’s Pearl City Station where a phlebotomist took a sample of her blood. Her blood alcohol concentration was 0.13. The legal threshold for drunken driving is 0.08 BAC.
At the start of the trial her lawyer Andrew Park told the jury that Armitage believes in her heart that she didn’t kill Werner and didn’t flee the scene. She told the jury Thursday that after the crash she shut down, stayed in her room, cut herself and twice attempted suicide. She later moved to the Big Island.
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.