2 months after getting DUI, man accused of driving drunk again and causing fatal Hwy. 169 crash

Two months after he allegedly crashed his car while drunk, a 20-year-old man was accused Monday of driving while intoxicated and killing another motorist in a high-speed collision on a Twin Cities highway.

Goay Gatluak Jikany, 20, was charged in Scott County District Court with criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the collision about 11:40 p.m. Sunday just south of Shakopee on Hwy. 169 at Marystown Road that killed Kala Karlene Henry, 46, of Chaska.

Jikany remains jailed without bail ahead of a court appearance Tuesday. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

On Sept. 27 at around 2:20 a.m., Jikany crashed his car into a tree in a Shakopee residential neighborhood in the 2300 block of Hauer Trail, according to police. They estimated he was driving 40 to 50 miles per hour. He was later charged with fourth-degree drunken driving.

According to the criminal complaint and a State Patrol statement stemming from Sunday’s collision:

Henry was traveling on southbound Hwy. 169 “at the posted speed limit” when Jikany hit her from behind “at a high rate of speed.”

The impact sent Henry’s car into a ditch, where it hit a culvert and rolled over. Emergency medical responders took her to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead less than an hour later. Jikany sustained noncritical injuries and was hospitalized briefly before he was jailed.

Jikany, sitting on the ground, told an officer that the other motorist was driving erratically and weaving before hitting him.

However, the complaint read, “it was apparent ... that [Jikany’s] description was not consistent with the damage observed on the vehicles, which was consistent with [his] vehicle’s front end colliding with the [other] vehicle’s rear end.”

The witness detected an odor of alcohol coming from Jikany, as did an officer. Jikany also had bloodshot and watery eyes, a common sign of intoxication, and his speech was “slurred, and [he] spoke deliberately at times,” the complaint continued.