The wrong-way SUV driver who killed a motorist near Northfield was extremely drunk at the time of the late-night crash, according to a felony charge filed in the death of an Iowa attorney driving home from the Bruno Mars concert in the Twin Cities.
Brandon P. Dellwo, 29, of Shakopee, was charged Tuesday in Rice County District Court with criminal vehicular homicide. Dellwo appeared in court Tuesday afternoon and remains jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail ahead of an Oct. 3 court appearance.
While in the hospital being treated for his own injuries, medical personnel and a state trooper heard Dellwo say multiple times, "I just killed someone," the criminal complaint read.
Law enforcement then took Dellwo to jail, where a preliminary breath test revealed his blood alcohol content to be 0.266 percent, more than three times the legal limit for driving in Minnesota.
The crash occurred about 12:10 a.m. Sunday on Hwy. 19 between Lonsdale and Northfield, killing Kacy E. Merseal, 29, of Des Moines. Merseal was engaged to be married in June 2018.
She worked as a defense attorney and was returning from the concert in St. Paul that night with a friend, Tanya Marie Von Weine, 30, of Story City, Iowa, Merseal's fiancé wrote in a posting on Facebook.
"She had a great time (at the concert), and the fact that her last day on Earth was a great day for her is one of the only things keeping me going right now," Vithoun Saysopha wrote. "I'm a mix of emotions, from being a sad wreck ... to being full of anger."
He added that Merseal, who died at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, "was just getting into the groove of being an attorney and arguing in the courtroom. She was doing what she loved to do. She was a defense attorney meaning she would've defended the guy that killed her."