Jail for Faribault man who drove drunk from wedding, struck and killed friend driving golf cart

A judge has handed down a one-year jail term to a southern Minnesota man for getting drunk at a wedding, insisting on driving and fatally hitting a friend as she drove a golf cart from the same gathering.

Orville B. Knott, 58, was sentenced Friday in Rice County District Court after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the August 2021 crash in Faribault that killed 40-year-old Megan Rose Graham.

Judge Christine Long ordered Knott to first serve 11 months in jail and then three days every year for the following nine years starting on Aug. 27, 2024, as an annual reminder of when Graham was killed.

Long's sentence includes 10 years of probation. It sets aside a four-year sentence that prosecutors wanted and that would have had Knott imprisoned for the first 2⅔ years of that time.

The judge explained in writing that she departed downward from state sentencing guidelines because Knott was "particularly amenable to probation [and] shows remorse/accepts responsibility." Long also pointed to Knott's "mitigated culpability" for the deadly crash.

Defense attorney Eric Olson noted in a court filing a week before sentencing that several factors out of his client's control contributed to the collision. The cart had no reflectors and the road was dark. Additionally, Graham was driving partly on the road and the shoulder while impaired by alcohol during a thunderstorm and with "a significant amount of THC in her system."

Olson's filing included a statement from Knott admitting that "I consumed a lot of alcohol" before he rear-ended the golf cart and killed Graham, whose family was "very good friends of mine."

County Attorney Brian Mortenson said Michael Graham shared his pain and overwhelming sorrow at sentencing, saying he has gone into a deep depression as if he had been "hit by a tornado" because of his wife's death.

"I can't sleep and have a hard time finding enough time for my kids," the county attorney quoted Michael Graham as saying. "I've become disconnected from the world I knew. My kids lost not only a loving mother, but they lost the father they had."

According to the criminal complaint:

Sheriff's deputies dispatched to the 22500 block of Glynview Trail arrived shortly after midnight on Aug. 29 and saw Knott's damaged pickup truck and a golf cart in a ditch. Graham was down behind the cart, and emergency responders declared her dead at the scene. Knott did not remain at the scene.

Law enforcement determined that Graham was using the cart to head home from a wedding at the Straight River Golf Course about 1¾ miles to the south.

The family members said they followed Knott and "noticed he was swerving on the gravel road" before he hit a driveway approach, went airborne and landed in the ditch, the complaint continued. They said they didn't know Knott hit the golf cart, and gave him a ride home.

Knott told police he arrived at the wedding between 3:15 and 3:30 p.m. and left around 10 or 11 p.m. He did not remember getting out of his pickup, "but he admitted getting in and remembered his daughter yelling at him not to drive home," the complaint read.

Knott said he was drinking "a lot" of beer at the wedding, the complaint continued.