An unlicensed motorist has admitted being drunk and high when he broadsided a car in Minneapolis and killed a cancer researcher who was driving home from her second job at a hospital.
Kenneth D. Spencer Jr., 25, of Maple Grove, pleaded guilty Thursday in Hennepin County District Court to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the collision shortly after 2 a.m. Nov. 18 at SE. 10th and University avenues that killed 24-year-old Ebony Miller of Minneapolis.
Spencer's plea comes with no agreement on sentencing terms with the prosecution. Sentencing is scheduled for June 1.
Spencer has never had a Minnesota driver's license, a state Department of Public Safety official said. Since April 2018, he's been convicted five times in Minnesota for driving without a license, once for traveling 104 miles per hour in a 50 mph zone, and once each for auto theft and fleeing police in a vehicle.
Miller's father said in an interview with a newspaper in the Bahamas, where she grew up, that his daughter was heading to her Minneapolis home from her second job as a doctor's assistant at M Health Fairview hospital when the crash occurred. Her primary work was as a pancreatic cancer researcher at the U in preparation for a career as a doctor.
According to the criminal complaint:
Officers arrived at the scene of the crash, where Spencer admitted to drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana before driving. A test of Spencer's blood by law enforcement showed his blood alcohol content was "almost twice the legal limit" for driving in Minnesota.
The complaint did not specify a precise blood alcohol content percentage. The legal limit for driving in Minnesota is 0.08%.
