Inset (left): Cynthia Martin (Itasca County Sheriff’s Office). Inset (right): Carter Haithcock (Rowe Funeral Home and Crematory). Background: Highway 169 in Mountain Iron, Minn. (Google Maps).
A Minnesota woman who was on her way home from dinner with friends hit a 19-year-old man walking down the street alone after a fight with a former girlfriend.
Cynthia Martin, 66, pleaded guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the hit-and-run death of 19-year-old Carter Haithcock. According to court documents obtained by Law&Crime, Haithcock was walking home on Highway 169 on the night of July 3, 2024, after a fight with a “former romantic partner” at a street dance in Nashwauk, Minnesota.
The same night, Martin was at the Sawmill Saloon restaurant in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, having dinner with friends before driving home on the same road.
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According to the court documents, Martin was on the phone with a friend at around 11:10 p.m. when she struck what she believed was an animal, then continued driving to her home in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Martin told the person on the phone, “Oh my God, I hit something.” She hung up, then called the same person back a few minutes later to let them know there was no damage to her vehicle except for the windshield. The other person told her to call 911.
Surveillance video captured a dark-colored SUV with one working headlight pulling over to the side of the highway for about 25 seconds before leaving the scene. At 11:17 p.m., another driver called 911 to report a body lying in the road. He told dispatchers he had to swerve to avoid running the body over.
A second driver did not swerve in time and ran over the body, then immediately pulled over to the side of the road and remained on scene. When police arrived, they quickly determined that neither of the two drivers there was responsible for killing the victim, later identified as Haithcock, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Police wrote that the suspect vehicle was a General Motors vehicle based on debris left in the road.
At 5:54 a.m. on July 4, Martin called 911 to report that she may have been involved in an accident the night before. She agreed to provide a statement to police and told them that after she left the Sawmill Saloon at 10:30 p.m. and drove home, she “hit something with her car” that she believed was “an owl or a turkey.” She told police she continued home and did not stop.
The investigation determined that Martin did not consume any alcohol and was not under the influence when she hit Haithcock.
Several witnesses saw Haithcock at a street dance in Nashwauk, where he reportedly argued with a “former romantic partner” around 10:50 p.m. After the fight, he told his friends he was walking home. During his walk, he placed “several calls” to the woman he argued with, the last of which was at 11:15 p.m.
After pleading guilty on May 20, Martin was sentenced on Monday to 365 days in jail and five years of supervised probation. On July 3 of each year of probation, she will have to report to jail and spend all of July 4 behind bars before being released on the morning of July 5. Martin, the former chair of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party for Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, will also have to complete 100 hours of community service.
The post Woman who plowed into 19-year-old pedestrian thought she hit ‘an owl or a turkey’ so she left the teen to die first appeared on Law & Crime.
