Background: The road in St. Cloud, Minn., where Christopher Otte allegedly hit a vehicle carrying a pregnant woman (Google Maps). Inset: Christopher Otte (Stearns County Sheriff”s Office).
A Minnesota man reportedly admitted that the head-on crash that caused a pregnant woman to lose her unborn child was his fault.
Christopher James Otte, 32, was charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide while driving under the influence after police said he crashed his SUV into a vehicle driven by a 34-year-old woman who was late in her pregnancy on Feb. 13. The St. Cloud Police Department said the woman was taken to the hospital in critical condition and lost her baby.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by local ABC affiliate KSTP, Otte told police at the scene, “It was my fault.”
Police spoke to witnesses who told officers they saw Otte’s SUV speeding through the St. Cloud neighborhood before the crash, which took place just before 1 p.m. Surveillance cameras reportedly caught Otte blowing through a stop sign at an intersection a few blocks away.
When police responded to the scene, they found the woman lodged between her steering wheel and the dashboard, the complaint says. As police tried to help her, her vehicle caught on fire. She was ultimately removed from the vehicle and taken to the hospital, where she is still reportedly in critical condition.
Otte remained at the scene, and appeared to be unsteady with slurred speech, police said. The criminal complaint said that a preliminary breath test revealed his BAC was 0.201, more than twice the legal limit. Despite that reading, Otte told police he only had two drinks that morning.
Police said he was able to recall the events of the crash, saying, “It was my fault,” and adding that he knew he “hit her straight on.”
KSTP reported that this was not Otte’s first drunk driving arrest. He had been convicted of DWI in 2019.
Otte was charged with vehicular homicide while operating a vehicle under the influence. He is being held in the Stearns County Jail without bond. His next court date is scheduled for March 16.
