Sunset Hills cop charged with manslaughter in March crash

By Rachel Lippmann, KWMU

St. Louis, MO – A Sunset Hills police officer has been charged with five felonies for her role in a March 21st crash that killed four young people from India and seriously injured a fifth.

Forty-one-year-old Christine Lynn Miller's blood alcohol content was allegedly twice the legal limit when she drove her 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse east in the westbound lanes of Dougherty Ferry Road at Des Peres Road early in the morning of March 21st. She collided nearly head-on with a 1997 Honda Accord that was making a turn from Des Peres onto Dougherty Ferry.

County prosecutor Bob McCulloch charged Miller with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of second-degree assault. Bond was set at $200,000 but Miller will be placed under house arrest with electronic monitoring because of injuries she suffered in the wreck. The Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated the crash and arrested Miller at her home in Kirkwood Tuesday morning. The accident reconstruction took until last Friday, he said.

"There were no, at this point anyway, no eyewitnesses to the actual collision, so, it just takes a long time to make the calculations and determinations and gather all that information," he said.

Miller has been suspended without pay from the department.