Woman accused of intentionally crashing into Cedar City bowling alley faces felony charge

CEDAR CITY — A Beaver woman accused of intentionally crashing into a Cedar City bowling alley over the weekend has been charged.

The 40-year-old woman was charged Monday in 5th District Court with causing property damage, a second-degree felony; reckless endangerment, a class A misdemeanor; and reckless driving, a class B misdemeanor.

Friday night, police were called to a bowling alley/arcade near 3000 N. Minersville Highway on a report of an SUV crashing into the building. Officers arrived to find a 2017 Land Rover "had crashed through the northwest part of the building. The vehicle was high-centered on the concrete and could not readily be removed under its own power," according to a police booking affidavit.

When police found the driver, she was "screaming at someone on the phone. She was saying things like 'You don't care about me...how could you leave me?'" the affidavit states.

The woman had no visible injuries but appeared to be "under the influence," police noted in their affidavit. She was taken to a local hospital to be checked out where she allegedly told staff members "that she did not mean to hit the building but felt like she had to," according to the affidavit.

When police reviewed surveillance video from the bowling alley, however, they observed the woman accelerated quickly into the wall, then put her vehicle into reverse and accelerated again, "crashing her vehicle further into the building, high centering it on the foundation," the affidavit states.

Damage to the bowling alley is estimated at $130,000. No one inside the building was hurt.

The charges come just two weeks after the woman was charged in 5th District Court in Beaver County with DUI and trespassing, class A misdemeanors. A police booking affidavit states she tried to break into a home, allegedly to look for her teen daughter. Police pulled her over after she drove away and "observed that she was struggling to form words and had extreme jittery movements. I also observed that a lot of the things she was saying were either incoherent or did not make sense," the affidavit states.

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