Christopher Wood (WISN).
A Wisconsin man is headed to prison after he mowed down a couple holding hands while they crossed the street and then left them in the middle of a snowy road.
Christopher Wood, 34, was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by five years of probation, after he pleaded no contest to hit-and-run with great bodily harm, according to court records.
The Waukesha County Sheriff”s Office responded around 8:44 p.m. on Dec. 2 to a hit-and-run on Main Street in the village of Merton, which is about 25 miles northwest of Milwaukee. When deputies arrived at the scene, they found a man and woman, both 64, in the road.
Paramedics rushed the victims to the hospital.
Local Fox affiliate WITI and The Freeman of Waukesha County obtained a criminal complaint that said the couple was in and out of consciousness when cops found them, and they suffered several broken bones and a brain bleed.
Surveillance video showed the couple looking both ways before they started to cross the street while they held hands. They were in the middle of the road when the woman began waving her arms “in an apparent attempt to get the attention of a vehicle coming towards them.”
The car, a blue sedan, slammed into both victims. The driver briefly slowed, then sped off, the complaint reportedly stated.
Video captured the car fleeing the scene. Cops recovered car debris left at the scene after the crash.
The next day, a sheriff’s deputy spotted a vehicle parked at a home about a mile away with front-end damage similar to the debris recovered at the scene.
A woman emerged from the home as the deputy photographed the vehicle and said she knew why he was there.
“It was my husband,” she reportedly said.
He went out to “go for a drive” around 8 p.m. and when he returned, she noticed damage to the vehicle. She drove him to work the next morning. He told her that he wanted to “get it over with” and turn himself in. Cops arrested him at the home.
Investigators also reviewed surveillance video from a gas station that reportedly showed him buying three cans of Miller High Life. Cops reportedly noted that he appeared to lose his balance in the store.
No update on the couple’s condition was available.
