Woman charged in crash that killed friend
A woman who drove into a backhoe after a few drinks told police that her friend — who died in the crash — steered them off the road. Monica Casas, 26, is now in custody and charged with vehicular homicide, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.
Police say Casas had been drinking before she veered into the construction zone on Interstate 40, near Rio Grande NW, around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. Her passenger was pronounced dead at the scene.
The bucket of the backhoe mainly struck the passenger side, breaking through the windshield and taking off part of the roof, according to police.
Casas told police she drove her friend, identified only as “Noe” in the complaint, from a dance he had been kicked out of in northwest Albuquerque.
“Noe was intoxicated and she told him to give her his keys to the vehicle and she would drive,” an officer wrote in the complaint.
Casas told police she was driving Noe, who was passed out, home when he woke up and began to yell, upset over seeing an ex-girlfriend earlier in the night.
The two began to argue before “Noe grabbed the steering wheel” and jerked it to the right, causing the car to hit the backhoe.
At the hospital, Casas failed a sobriety test after telling police she drank two shots of alcohol earlier in the night.