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Home > News > 70-year-old Eagle woman charged with vehicular manslaughter for fatal car vs. bike crash last summer

70-year-old Eagle woman charged with vehicular manslaughter for fatal car vs. bike crash last summer

A 70-year-old motorist is charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in connection with fatal car vs. bicycle crash that occurred near the Iron Eagle Drive/Edgewood Lane intersection on Aug. 13.

Mary A. Curtis is scheduled for an arraignment hearing on Dec. 19 in 4th District Magistrate Court. The crime of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Cyclist Joann Baker, who was wearing a helmet when she was hit, was pronounced dead about three hours after the crash occurred.

Officers began their investigation just before 9 a.m. on Aug. 13 when they got a report that a passenger car going southbound on Edgewood Lane collided with a bicyclist, who was on Edgewood near the crosswalk at the Iron Eagle Drive intersection.

Witnesses say the 71-year-old Baker was crossing Edgewood on her bike, going east-to-west, when she was hit by Curtis’s car.

The force of the impact resulted in immediate and serious injury to Baker. Paramedics arrived moments later and transported her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead just before noon.

Officials with the Ada County Coroner’s Office listed Baker’s cause of death as blunt force trauma and the manner of death as accidental.

Curtis told investigators she was looking at a school bus stopped on Iron Eagle Drive at the stop sign and didn’t see Baker crossing Edgewood Lane until it was too late.

Prosecutors determined that while Curtis was driving her car “in a inattentive, careless, or imprudent manner” at the time of the crash, she did so “without gross negligence and without malice,” which is why she is charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter instead of a felony, according to court records.

Prosecutors charged Curtis in early November.