GhLinks Media
A mother-of-three restaurant worker and a nurse have been identified as the two people who lost their lives Sunday night when a driver plowed his vehicle into an eatery’s outdoor patio.
Kristina Folkerts, 30, had been working in the packed outdoor seating area at Park Tavern in St. Louis Park, Missouri at around 8pm when a driver – who has since been identified as Steven Frane Bailey, 56 – accelerated his car into the crowd.
Folkerts, who had been following in her mother’s footsteps as a server at Park Tavern and who had recently started a relationship with a co-worker, was pinned underneath the vehicle, the Minnesota Star Tribune reports.
It took nearly 10 officers to lift the car off of her, according to Zach Winslow, who was working as the on-site manager that night.
Also killed in the crash was Gabe Harvey, an ICU nurse at the nearby Methodist Hospital, who was out celebrating a co-worker who was leaving her role as a nurse after seven years to go onto CRNA school, according to an online fundraiser.
Police have said Bailey was caught on surveillance footage entering the parking lot, but not walking into the restaurant.
He was then seen trying to park, but instead accelerated into the patio, where generations of residents have held baby showers, class reunions and even wedding receptions.
‘It was out of a damn movie,’ said Terry Freeman, the general manager of Park Tavern and the brother-in-law of the owner.
‘He went around a car then barreled right through. He ended up on that hill by the flowers.’
Patrons kept the driver inside his vehicle until police arrived on the scene about two minutes later, Winslow told the Star Tribune.
Bailey was then booked into the Hennepin County Jail at around 12.10am on Monday on suspicion of two counts of criminal vehicular homicide.
He remained in custody without bail throughout the Labor Day holiday pending charges that could come as early as Tuesday, as city officials work to determine whether drugs or alcohol may have contributed to the crash.
