Woman gets 2 years for striking boy with vehicle

MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake woman will be spending a little over two years in prison for striking a boy who was walking his bicycle across a crosswalk and fleeing the scene.

Suzette Brown, 49, of Moses Lake, pleaded guilty to hit-and-run, DUI, possession of a controlled substance and third-degree theft. Grant County Superior Court Judge David Estudillo followed a joint recommendation between Deputy Prosecutor Carole Highland and defense attorney Stephen Kozer and sentenced Brown to 25 months in prison.

Brown’s sentence stems from two separate incidents, the first of which occurred on March 31, when she stole $150 in cash and Hydrocodone pills out of a purse that had been left in a shopping cart at the Moses Lake Walmart. Brown was later spotted on video surveillance inside the store after the theft and taken into custody.

After she was questioned by police Brown admitted to taking the money, but denied taking the pills. She later came clean and said she had hidden the pills in her vehicle. She claimed she didn’t take the pills because she was an addict; rather she stated she stole them because she knows “people who would take them” and she “would just give them to people if they needed them,” according to police records.

The second incident occurred on June 14, when the Moses Lake Police Department responded to a report of a vehicle striking a pedestrian in the area of East Lark Avenue and South Grand Drive and fleeing the scene. Witnesses to the incident reported that the victim, a 9-year-old boy, was walking his bicycle across on a sidewalk on South Grand Drive and was struck by a 2004 Ford Escape driven by Brown.

Police records indicate she failed to stop at a stop sign and struck the boy with enough force to knock the license plate off her vehicle. The boy was on the hood of the car for between 15 and 20 feet before he fell off, witnesses told police. The victim was on the ground as Brown dragged his bicycle for another block underneath her vehicle and fled the area.

The boy was seriously injured and initially transported to Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake, but was later transported to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane.

Police contacted the registered owner of the Escape, who claimed his daughter, Brown, was using the vehicle. The man later contacted MACC Dispatch stating Brown told him the vehicle was stolen. Brown initially denied involvement in the collision and stated her vehicle was stolen, but later changed her story. She claimed she left a friend’s house on South Grand Drive and was going “maybe” 30 mph when she hit the boy. A search warrant was granted for Brown’s blood, as she admitted to smoking meth about 10 hours before the collision.

She admitted to telling her passenger in the vehicle, identified as William Young, 23, of Moses Lake, to get rid of the car and said he drove the vehicle to the Moses Lake Sand Dunes and left it there.

Richard Byrd can be reached via email at city@columbiabasinherald.com.