Iowa State University police have identified the owner of the car that hit and killed an I-S-U student on December 3. It was early in the morning when 20-year-old Kelly Laughery died while walking along Mortenson road on the south edge of campus, and Commander Gene Deisinger says they got help trying to solve the case right from the start.
Deisinger says the day of the accident they already got information that helped identify the vehicle, and its driver. He says ever since then they’ve followed up numerous leads to confirm the driver of the car was Shanda Rae Munn. A junior from Lawler, Iowa, she’s 20, the same age as the sophomore who died after the early-morning incident. Deisinger says he’s talked with witnesses who say the suspect had been at a party at an apartment on Mortenson Road.
He says they were not at the same party, and the victim had been at a different apartment building along the same road. By the next day campus police had a search warrant and found a car in a garage in Nevada that allegedly has damage matching the victim’s injuries and also matching parts found on the road at the scene of the accident.
Deisinger says they’ve known the identity of the car’s owner and driver since the day after the incident, but withheld it to avoid compromising the investigation or potential witness information. “We are at a point where we are no longer concerned about that, and felt it important to release the name publicly.”
Deisinger’s sent information from the investigation on over to the Story County Attorney’s office to review and make any decision on filing charges. Story County Attorney Steve Holmes hasn’t yet returned calls asking if charges have been filed in the case.