Third-degree murder charges added against driver in Park Tavern crash that killed 2, injured 9

Two counts of third-degree murder were added to the litany of criminal charges against the driver who killed two people and injured nine others after allegedly crashing into the Park Tavern patio while driving drunk on Labor Day weekend.

Steven Frane Bailey, 56, was already facing six felony charges, including two counts of criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the Sept. 2 crash at the St. Louis Park establishment. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office reviewed surveillance video of the crash, which was previously unavailable to them, and amended the charges to add third-degree murder counts for the killing of Park Tavern employee Kristina Folkerts, 30, of St. Louis Park, and customer Gabriel Quinn Harvey, 30, of Rosemount.

Folkerts, a mother to three, was a server at the restaurant where her mother had also worked. Harvey, a health unit coordinator at nearby Methodist Hospital and a nursing school student, was there with others celebrating a colleague’s departure.

Methodist nurses Theo Larson, Tegan D’Albani and Laura Knutsen were hospitalized with serious injuries. They have since been released or their conditions have improved. Six others sustained minor injuries.

In a news release announcing the change, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the language of the third-degree murder charge, committing an act “eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved mind, without regard for human life,” matched the crime.

According to the release and court documents:

The surveillance video showed Bailey driving a BMW SUV into the Park Tavern parking lot, which was close to capacity just after 8 p.m. Several people were walking through the parking lot, and Bailey would have been able to clearly see the people seated on the patio while driving through the lot. Bailey drove past a parking spot, seemed to notice it and then reversed. He reversed too far, hit a parked car behind him and then accelerated “in what appears to be an attempt to flee the scene.”

Bailey swerved to avoid another SUV driving near him but crashed into the rear driver’s side of that car. He continued to accelerate and “crashes through a metal fence and into the patio seating.”

Folkerts died at the scene, and Harvey died after being taken to HCMC. A preliminary breath test administered by law enforcement at HCMC registered Bailey’s blood alcohol content at 0.325%, more than four times the legal limit.

In an evaluation before his first court appearance last week, Assistant County Attorney Erin Goltz said Bailey denied “any problematic use of drugs or alcohol.” Bailey is currently in custody at Hennepin County Jail and is being held on $500,000 bail. His next court appearance is scheduled for Oct. 1.

Court documents show Bailey has five drunken-driving convictions on his record. The first came in Wisconsin when he was 17 years old. He had additional convictions for drunken driving in Wabasha County in 1993 and Hennepin County in 1998. Files for those cases are no longer public.

In 2014, he was found guilty of drunken driving after police stopped him in Waseca and measured his blood-alcohol content at 0.16%, twice the legal limit.

He was convicted again in 2015 after a police officer in Plymouth did a random registration check and saw Bailey’s driving privileges had been canceled because of the previous drunken driving offense. A preliminary breath test administered to Bailey about 90 minutes after that stop measured his blood-alcohol content at 0.08%, the minimum needed to allege intoxication.

At the time of the crash at Park Tavern, Bailey had a valid driver’s license, state officials said.

That fact has reignited questions about how the state punishes people with repeat offenses for drunk driving. Bailey’s license had been canceled before, but in Minnesota, as long as offenders fulfill a range of requirements, the longest they can lose their license is six years if they haven’t injured anyone, no matter how many drunk driving offenses they have. If they do injure someone, the period can run up to 10 years.

DFL Sen. Ron Latz, who represents St. Louis Park and chairs the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, said Sunday’s crash has pushed him to look into possible legislation to extend the time period that drunken driving offenders must use an ignition interlock device to drive.

While Minnesota employs interlock devices, it’s one of 16 states that does not require them for all drunken driving offenders after the first offense, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which advocates for stricter impaired-driving policies.

Star Tribune staff writers Paul Walsh and Elliot Hughes contributed to this story.