A woman is on trial for allegedly killing her husband in a hit-and-run. Lori Ann Phillips, 53, is charged with second-degree reckless homicide in the death of Mark Phillips, 48.
According to the complaint out of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, she said she found her husband dead in a snowbank by their home early Feb. 23, 2019.
A La Crosse County sheriff’s sergeant arrived to find Lori Ann Phillips kneeling near her husband’s body.
Upset and emotional, Lori Ann Phillips told the investigators they had had an argument several hours before, and Mark Phillips had been drinking.
“I didn’t know he was out here though, like this,” she said.
Authorities said she repeated that they had previously argued several hours before.
“He was coming around this truck to come and get me so I took off. His door was still wide open but I didn’t know that he was,” she allegedly said.
According to authorities, “She continued with more of a rambling statement, possibly saying she did not hurt him, she did know what happened, and she did not know he was there.”
She allegedly claimed to have found him lying in the snowbank after she noticed his absence from the bedroom.
They had been together for three years.
“I wish I knew he was there,” she allegedly said.
“My god, I came home last night and I never even saw him,” she allegedly said.
In a follow-up interview, the defendant allegedly said she left to try to get a hotel room after arguing with her husband, but she picked the wrong date. Eventually, she returned home at what she believed to be 2 a.m.
Lori Phillips allegedly wrote investigators in a statement that Mark Phillips had been on the passenger side door with the door open. He got mad and started running over to her door as she was in the driver’s seat.
“When he got to her door, Lori said she ‘took off,”” authorities wrote. “The passenger door was still open and when she turned right out of the driveway it closed. She drove to a subdivision down the street and pulled over to see if Mark was going to chase her. A white truck went by her and pulled into their garage, so she went to find a hotel room.”
She later added to her story that Mark Phillips had put her in a chokehold while they were at the truck by The Dive Bar the night of Feb 22, 2019.
Defendant Phillips allegedly claimed she had turned off the security camera on her way home remotely through her phone after the incident so that it would not wake up Mark Phillips when the motion sensors picked her up.
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