Hit-And-Run Charges Filed In Fatal Inver Grove Heights Crash

INVER GROVE HEIGHTS, MN — A 30-year-old Inver Grove Heights woman is accused of leaving the scene of a fatal crash back in January. Breyona Sadi Cotton, 30, of Inver Grove Heights has been charged with one count each of leaving the scene of a collision resulting in death and failure to notify police of a collision resulting in death (both felonies).

The charges are in connection with a crash that took place on 80th Street near the intersection of Blaine Avenue in Inver Grove Heights on Jan. 5 that killed 55-year-old Haimanot Gezahegne Gebremedhin.

On Jan. 5 at about 5:40 p.m., a woman's body was found lying in the road. Lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful and the woman, later identified as Gebremedhin, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The following day, Breyona Cotton came to the Inver Grove Heights Police Department with her attorney to report that she had information pertaining to the crash that killed the victim.

Cotton’s attorney told police that she had learned from friends — who saw news coverage of the incident — that she had struck a person the night before, according to the criminal complaint.

She told police that after she left a nearby McDonald’s drive-thru, she drove towards Blaine Avenue when "out of nowhere" she heard a collision and thought she had struck a deer.

After the accident, she said she stopped, but didn’t see or hear anything and did not get out of her car, as she believed she hit a deer. She then drove home.

The crash reconstruction report by the Minnesota State Patrol concluded that the front bumper of Cotton's car stuck the victim’s legs, which forced her entire body onto the hood and her head to strike the windshield.

The report concluded that the victim should have been seen by Cotton and that any reasonable investigation into the collision would have revealed the victim’s body.

"Any driver who strikes an object has an obligation to reasonably investigate what was struck and remain at the scene when the collision results in injury to or the death of a person," Dakota County attorney James Backstrom said in a statement.