Jury convicts driver in fatal I35E car crash

Tito F. Campbell was convicted Thursday of fleeing police and causing the April 18 death of Shoua Vang after he sped through a red light at the top of an exit ramp off Interstate 35E and crashed into the car she was riding in with her husband.

Campbell, however, was found not guilty of fleeing police and causing substantial bodily harm to Vang's husband, Zong Xiong, who sustained a 3 1/2-inch laceration to his scalp in the crash. Jurors did return a guilty verdict of criminal vehicular operation resulting in bodily harm, a lesser offense than substantial bodily harm.

District Judge John Guthmann will sentence Campbell on Jan. 12.

On Wednesday, Campbell, 33, of Crystal, took the stand in his own defense and quite clearly admitted he was guilty of several of the other charges against him:

He drove drunk and way too fast, he said. He endangered his child. He was responsible for the death of Vang.

The jury concurred and, in addition to the most serious charge of fleeing and causing a death, found him guilty of criminal vehicular homicide, first-degree drunken driving, child endangerment and driving after license cancellation. The latter two charges are gross misdemeanors; the rest are felonies.

Campbell, 33, of Crystal, stifled sobs Wednesday as he told his story. He and his 10-year-old son were at the apartment of his ex-girlfriend, Amanda Mueller, that day. The former couple got in a heated argument. "My son, he was crying because of the words we were saying to each other," Campbell said. "I wanted to leave. I didn't want him to be there."

"Basically I floored the car," he said. "I wanted to get out of the area before he [the officer] stopped me or saw where I went."

Campbell hopped on eastbound Hwy. 36, then southbound I-35E, zooming past traffic on the shoulder. He said he assumed the officer he saw talking to Mueller would try to follow him, but said he never saw or heard the sirens or lights of the squads chasing him.

Campbell took the Larpenteur Avenue exit and didn't try to stop at the red light "until it was too late," he said. According to State Patrol Sgt. Paul Skoglund, who downloaded data from the car's "black box," the car was going 76 miles per hour 2 seconds before the airbags deployed when the car collided with a traffic-light pole and 45 m.p.h. one-tenth of a second beforehand.

Vang, a St. Paul mother of six, was pronounced dead at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. Xiong was briefly hospitalized.