Blood on air bag leads to charges in fatal hit-skip

DNA collected from an air bag helped Franklin County deputies file charges against a Columbus man accused of killing a62-year-old woman by driving ANSUV throughher mobile home in Franklin Township.

Everette D. Collins, 29, of the 1200 block of South 22nd Street on the South Side, was arrested Sunday on felony charges of aggravated vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of the Jan. 19 crash.

County Municipal Court Judge James P. O’grady set Collins’ bond at $1 million on Monday during his first court appearance.

Judith Wade died of her injuries on Jan. 31 in a Columbus hospital. Her granddaughter, 5-year-old Lilliana Kontul, was seriously injured in the crash.

Deputies said Collins was driving a 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer west on Greenlawn Avenue at a high rate of speed at 1:10 a.m. when the SUV went off the left side of the road, flattened afence andslammed through Wade’smobile home in the 800 block of Ronnie Lane.the SUV came to a stop afterstriking a2013 Chrysler Town and Country minivan parked on the other side of the mobile home.

The driver ran away, deputies said. Investigators gave the SUV’S air bag, which contained the driver’s blood, to the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by a detective with the sheriff’s office. DNA testing “confirmed that the blood on the air bag belonged to Mr. Collins,” the detective wrote.

Deputies said Collins’ license was suspended at the time of thecrash.