A Gillette woman originally charged with assault now faces allegations of vehicular homicide, after her boyfriend died of an SUV strike investigators say was her fault.
Police found Devyn Hendricks, 32, lying under a black Cadillac Escalade in residential Gillette at about 1 a.m. July 5, says an evidentiary affidavit filed in the criminal case of the late Hendricks’ girlfriend, 29-year-old Dana Johnson.
Hendricks died eight days later in a South Dakota hospital.
His obituary characterizes him as a loving family man, an outdoorsman, and a father of three children.
The Tally
Johnson faces one count of aggravated vehicular homicide, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 in fines.
Campbell County Attorney Nathan Henkes also charged her Thursday with one count each of aggravated assault (punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines), DUI with a child passenger (up to one year and $750 in fines), and failing to stop at a deadly or injurious crash (up to one year and $5,000 in fines).
Her preliminary hearing is set for next Monday in Gillette Circuit Court.
With a maximum of 32 years in prison, the new charges altogether carry heavier penalties than the maximum 23 years’ jail time of those Henkes’ office originally filed against Johnson 10 days prior.
Those were: two aggravated assault counts and one each of DUI with child passenger, endangering children (up to one year and $1,000) and failure to stop at a deadly or injurious crash.
The Scene
The scene involved a family fight, two people hit by a car and another who dodged narrowly, according to an evidentiary affidavit by Gillette Police Department detective Alan Stuber.
GPD officers converged in the area of the 1900 block of Chestnut Circle at about 1:07 a.m. July 5, to find Hendricks lying under the Cadillac with visible injuries to his head, according to the document and a prior police statement.
Emergency medical personnel arrived and took Hendricks to the Campbell County Health Emergency Department for medical treatment. Later that same morning, a life flight took Hendricks to Monument Health in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Witnesses on scene told officers of a female driver, later identified as Johnson, fleeing the scene on foot after running Hendricks over, the affidavit says.
Officers responded to Johnson’s last known address and found her walking nearby. They detained her without incident, delivered her Miranda rights and took her to the police department, Stuber wrote.
Johnson told Officer Kyle Sprague that she remembered seeing Hendricks standing in front of the vehicle on the driver’s side. She was trying to leave the area “when Devyn was struck,” says the document.
She halted the car, got out, saw her boyfriend lying unresponsive on the ground, and tried to shake him, the affidavit relates from that interview.
He didn’t respond.
Not knowing what to do, the document says, she panicked and ran home.
Sprague had spotted her running, the affidavit adds.
Earlier That Night…
Stuber was called into the case and interviewed Johnson.
Johnson confirmed to Stuber that Hendricks was her boyfriend.
The document relates that earlier that night, she and Hendricks had been at the Montgomery Bar, where Hendricks’ son called Hendricks to report that his mother’s boyfriend had punched him in the head.
As of Tuesday, the boyfriend was not charged in state court in connection with the claim. He could not be reached via the phone number in his court file.
GPD Capt. Eric Vos told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday the results of a later child forensic interview did not support charging the man, but the matter has been referred to the Department of Family Services for further scrutiny.
Circling Back
With Johnson driving, the pair left the bar and went to Hendricks’ ex-wife’s home.
Hendricks argued with his ex-wife. His two sons left the home and got into the Cadillac Escalate Johnson was driving, and Johnson drove away from the scene with both children in the vehicle, says the affidavit.
She circled back to retrieve Hendricks a short time later, and the children exited the Escalade at that time, the document notes.
Johnson said in her interview with Stuber that the ex-wife then got into the car and started hitting her in the head.
The ex-wife was also not charged in connection with the night’s events. Video and other evidence didn’t support Johnson’s claim of being attacked, Vos said in his interview.
Johnson claimed that she drove the vehicle forward, put it in park and fled on foot, the affidavit relates.
Stuber noted during that interview that she smelled of alcohol, he wrote.
He asked her to perform field sobriety tests and give a breath-alcohol content reading. She performed poorly on the tests and, in a reading taken two hours and 23 minutes after the crash, gave a breath-alcohol reading of 0.065%, the detective added.
Her Version
Next, Stuber spoke with the ex-wife at the police department. She denied getting attacking Johnson.
The ex-wife said that Hendricks arrived at her home and their two sons got into the Cadillac, which Johnson drove away.
The four were gone for about 10 to 15 minutes, added the ex-wife.
This upset her. She said Johnson had “no right to be around her children due to prior concerning behavior,” related Stuber from that interview.
The two women argued.
When Johnson returned to the home with the children, the ex-wife approached the vehicle and opened the rear passenger door on the vehicle, at which point Johnson “floored it,” dragging the ex-wife and thrashing her toward the rear of the car, the document relates.
The affidavit says that the ex-wife’s boyfriend was helping the ex-wife back to her feet just as Johnson ran Hendricks over.
The boyfriend called 911. The ex-wife’s head was injured, she told police.
Surveillance
The night of July 5, neighbors gave investigators video of the incident, which, according to Stuber’s account of it, shows Johnson driving away from the area with at least one child then returning.
The ex-wife “Can be heard on the video screaming repeatedly “Give me my mother (expletive) kid.”
“As Dana comes to a stop,” wrote Stuber, “three individuals appear in her headlights.”
One of those was the ex-wife, approaching the driver’s side and shouting that same phrase, reaching the driver’s door and opening it, the detective added.
“At that moment, Dana accelerated,” Stuber wrote. The move knocked the ex-wife to the ground and hit Hendricks, who was standing in front of the car.
Had the ex-wife’s boyfriend not moved, he too would have been struck, the document says.
The video shows Johnson exiting the vehicle and drawing near her boyfriend.
The two women then exchanged profanities, and Johnson fled on foot, wrote Stuber.
“Notably,” he added, “no one is seen exiting the Escalade until after Devyn is struck, showing Dana to be the one in control of the vehicle when Devyn is (run) over.”
Forensic Interview
In a later forensic interview, one of the children said he and his brother got into the car with Johnson because they didn’t want to stay at the home. But they went back because the child realized he’d forgotten his phone, says the affidavit.
The child acknowledged Johnson had been driving that night, but declined to give more details, saying he didn’t want to talk about it, Stuber wrote.
Hospital Stay
Stuber stayed in touch with Monument Health staffers.
At 4:57 p.m. on July 12, Hendricks was pronounced dead after having been declared brain dead prior, the investigator wrote.
The document says Hendricks was kept alive after his brain died so the family could arrange the donation of his organs.
Johnson’s court file says she is represented by the public defender’s office, which does not comment on cases.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
