Drunk driving is suspected in crash that killed woman
By Kim Bell
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
04/22/2007
MARYLAND HEIGHTS — A suspected drunken driver was charged Saturday with involuntary manslaughter after his car plowed into the back of another vehicle, killing a young woman.The suspect, Pedro Santos, 27, was arrested about 3 a.m. Saturday, about three hours after the crash, hiding in woods not far from the scene at Marine Avenue and Bennington Place.Killed in the crash was Nicole Allen, 21. She was a back-seat passenger in an Acura that had slowed or just stopped at the intersection, waiting for a green light, about midnight Friday. A Lincoln Town Car slammed into the back of the Acura.Allen died at the scene. The Acura's driver, Larry Lane, 24, suffered minor injuries. His front-seat passenger, Charles Miller, 28, had two cracked vertebrae. Both remained hospitalized Saturday at St. John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur.
Police say that Santos' vehicle was disabled by the crash and that he ran from the scene. Authorities used a helicopter and search dogs to find him. Police say they think Santos had been the only person in the Lincoln.Three hours after the crash, Santos appeared intoxicated, police said. Santos' blood was drawn, but results of his blood-alcohol level aren't yet available, said Maryland Heights police Sgt. Mark Pruett.Prosecutors in St. Louis County charged Santos with involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second-degree assault by driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident. Bail was set at $100,000.Santos admitted to police that he had entered the country from Mexico illegally. His local address was in the 12300 block of Bennington Place. Police say he was a restaurant cook.Allen lived with her mother, Denise Buchholz, and stepfather, Brian Buchholz, in the 11800 block of Gold Leaf Drive, an unincorporated pocket of St. Louis County near Maryland Heights.Allen graduated in 2004 from Parkway North High School. She worked as a server at Red Robin restaurant and was a junior at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, studying photography, graphic design and art history."She was a cute, petite, fun-loving friend," said her aunt Debbie Nolen of Springfield, Mo. "She was a little angel."The fact that Santos is an illegal immigrant was not lost on Allen's family, who gathered at the home on Gold Leaf. That further enraged them."He had no business being on the road anyway, but he's drunk on top of it," Nolen said. Some of her friends plan to set up a fund for memorial contributions at Citizens Bank in Florissant, said Allen's stepfather. The money may be used for a scholarship for art students.
11 comments:
Sorry to hear about something so tragic happening to this young girl! But something like this can happen with anyone it doesnt matter what race legal or illegal. Look at Jefferey Dammer, WACO, Charles Manson all white legal people..... Dont try to make illegals guilty.
I just came home from the court. I have been a victim of an illegal alien crime (burglary) and I don't understand why we don't put deadly electric fences across our southern borders. We also need to make the punishment of hiring illegal aliens stricter so that businesses can't hire them as cheap labor. This will reduce the incentive for more people to jump the borders if they know that they can't survive here if illegal.
Anonymous who was robbed. I'm sorry for your loss. I can't keep anything in my front yard anymore, our cars have been broken into twice, and I now have home security. All I can tell you is that there are people in D.C. right now protesting illegal immigration and the North American Union. Go to ALIPAC, look up what's happening in DC and join in. Every American needs to participate.
Anonymous expressing sorrow but asking for comparison to American crime: You missed the point of my blog. If we sit back and lament our losses to anything, breast cancer, HIV, drunk driving, etc., and do nothing we only continue to suffer those losses. Illegal immigration is only one tenacle of a hugh monster called the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the North American Union. By not doing anything about illegal immigration, in which we lose 10,000 people a year and destroy thousands of families, we also lose our soverneignty and a great nation that has existed as a beacon of freedom for 230 years will no longer exist. I'm going to refer you to my other website, www.theodessapatriot.com. It will not only educate you in what's going on, it will give you links to other more important sites. When I run across statements like yours, I usually find out they have no idea of what is occurring in our country. I'm not deriding you for that; I was also unaware until about a year ago. After I found out, I spent about 4 months in abject depression. Then I decided to fight. For the shock value, please go to my site, look over on the left under categories and click on SPP. A number of articles will come up. Pick "There Went Your Army," and take a close look at the emblem up in the upper left hand corner. That is not the United States. It is the North American Continent. I'm a veteran, married to a retired, disabled veteran, a daughter to a veteran, sister to a veteran. I can assure you that we did not fight to see this occur... and the general American public is unware of it. Another thing I usually find out about statements such as yours, is that the writer is against the military lives and the Iraqi lives we are losing in Iraq. Over a 5-year period, we have not lost as many American lives in Iraq as we are losing due to illegal aliens. Each of these stories brings me heartache. Sometimes I have to back off for a while. Two or three of the families have accidently run across this blog and written to me. Little Joshua Morrow's grandmother was one. She sent us pictures which we used for ALIPAC posters to go to Congress. The stories are heartbreaking. The actual talking to people who have suffered these losses is even more heartbreaking. It's a loss they didn't have to incur. It's totally senseless. I'm a nurse. To me, it's the same as having a patient die of breast cancer because they didn't choose to have a mammogram soon enough. But I'm also a patriot and I'll not apologize for that. The NAU is a dangerous future for us. I'm so dang old, it won't affect me very much. The council that will override your rights in favor of international trading has already been formed. It WILL affect your life and liberty.
I'm not sure if you know who Nicole Allen was...what I do know is that Nicole was a great person. I never seen her without a smile on her face. She was confident and the only person at 5'2" and 98lbs that could stand down a 300lb man. Does this mean a whole lot in the scheme of things? Probably not...at least not to those who don't know who she was. It's hard for me to go to classes and not see her smiling face and asking me how my son was. Things were never about her but everyone around her. She made life beautiful through the things that she did and the people that she was around. This drunk that hit her car was being stupid. To top it off he ran. He KNEW what he had done. He'll have to live with that for the rest of his life but if we had better security on our borders this man would not have been here at all. Not all illegals are bad people, my niece is married to one...but again that's not the point here. The point is we need to support our country in the fight against people like this! I may not be a big fan of the war or Bush for that matter, but what I support is peace and if this war and this fight at our borders is the only way to do it then so be it. I've lost loved ones in the war and now I've lost someone so dear to me, a very close friend because she was on the town with a couple of her friends and this...this monster takes her life. She was a fantastic artist, a true master to be. She would have graced us for a long time to come with gorgeous images that she captured from the beauty around her because she found beauty in everything. Nicole didn't deserve this and niether to the hundereds upon hundreds of other people whose families and lives are destroyed because people don't like what God delt to them. It IS our problem. It IS our country. It IS our right to defend it. It IS our responsibility to make sure things like this don't happen in the future...get my drift? This is an uncalled for act or stupidity and I hope to God he pays for it dearly!
Thank you for leaving your comment, Angie. It means a lot to me and so many others. I'm terribly sorry that you've lost a valuable friend. I am sick that the world has needlessly lost such a promising young woman and that her family has to suffer through this loss also.
My friend was a good friend of Nicole's and what happened makes me sick. But for the government's support for open borders, Nicole would still be alive. But because President Bush wants all the cheap labor he can get at the request of Big Business, and because the Democrats see illegal immigration as a source for cheap labor, we have 1 to 3 million illegal aliens pouring across our borders EVERY YEAR.
There's no "Mothers Against Drunk Driving" (MADD) south of our border, and it's socially acceptable to drive drunk in Mexico. When we leave our front door wide open, we let in people who have undergone NO background checks. Our immigration system is designed to let in those who will be an asset to society, and filter out those who pose a threat.
But illegal immigration destroys all that. The result is that innocent people are killed.
PLEASE vote for Duncan Hunter or Tom Tancredo in 2008. They are the only ones who will actually enforce our immigration laws. Our families, and indeed our national sovereignty, are at stake.
TANCREDO 2008!!!!
RON PAUL, DUNCAN HUNTER - I'll go for them, too!!!
I am so sorry. My brother was killed by an illegal alien driving drunk, and he hit my brother at 60 MPH in a 20 MPH zone, and my brother was on the SIDEWALK.
ALl you assholes that say this would happen regardless, NO IT WOULD NOT. THESE ILLEGAL ASSHOLES would not be here there WOULD BE NO ACCIDENT!!!!
Since everybody is stating that they're coming north to cross our border...Why don't you all just call them Mexicans? Stop calling them ILLEGAL ALIENS when you really want to say Mexicans. You know you want to say it.
Because they're not all Mexicans, Mateo, but they are all illegal aliens.
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