An unlicensed driver has admitted to a charge of murder for fatally striking a woman with a vehicle in Maplewood and dragging the victim’s body along the pavement.
Ashley Renee Couch, 35, of St. Paul pleaded guilty in Ramsey County District Court last week to second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with the hit-and-run crash over the summer at E. Larpenteur Avenue and N. Dieter Street that killed 23-year-old Zakirrah Anderson of Minneapolis.
The plea agreement calls for Couch to receive a 3½-year term when she is sentenced on March 3. With credit for time in custody since her arrest, Couch is expected to serve the first two years of her term in prison and the balance on supervised release.
At the time of the incident, Couch was driving after having her license revoked, the state Department of Public Safety said.
Court records show that Couch has a long and varied criminal history in Minnesota. She has been convicted six times for theft, four times each for disorderly conduct and assault, twice for terroristic threats and once each for aiding a drive-by shooting, property damage and possessing burglary tools.
She also has a conviction for child endangerment on her record stemming from when she threw her newborn daughter in a snowbank in south Minneapolis on a freezing-cold day in March 2011. She was sentenced to two years’ probation for that offense.
Couch told law enforcement she was upset with the baby’s father for taking money from her house.
