SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — A woman accused of fatally hitting two people with her car and leaving the scene of the incident was convicted of another fatal hit-and-run that occurred more than a decade ago.
Megan Skillingstad was arrested Sunday morning for allegedly running over and killing two people in Airway Heights over the weekend. Court documents reveal that in 2011, when Skillingstad was 19 years old, she hit and killed a bicyclist in north Spokane and drove away.
She pleaded guilty to failure to remain at the scene of a fatal accident in 2013, two years after the incident occurred, and nearly a decade before she allegedly killed two people in Airway Heights
On Monday, Skillingstad appeared in Spokane County Superior Court for her first appearance, where she was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of hit-and-run.
According to court documents, Skillingstad told deputies she fell asleep at the wheel and thought she hit a power pole. She also admitted to drinking and driving, which was later confirmed when her blood-alcohol content (BAC) measured at 0.13.
In 2011, witnesses reported seeing a light-colored sedan hit a bicyclist in front of a Walgreens on Empire and Division in North Spokane before fleeing the scene. Skillingstad was later identified as the driver of the vehicle.
A friend of Skillingstad's told police that after the incident, Skillingstad called her in a state of distress, admitting to hitting the cyclist. The friend attempted to persuade Skillingstad to turn herself in, but Skillingstad was too afraid to do so. When Skillingstad later learned that the bicyclist had died, she became distraught, texting her friend that "my world is coming to an end" and "I would never do anything to hurt anyone, you know this."
After an intervention by two of her friends, Skillingstad finally told her parents about the hit-and-run, and on August 5, 2011, police took her car and questioned her. Court documents state that Skillingstad admitted to everything during the interaction.
As a result of the incident, Skillingstad pleaded guilty to one count of failure to remain at the scene of a fatal accident on May 3, 2013. She was sentenced to a year in jail, with the ability to be held in community custody at four and a half months.
Now, ten years later, Skillingstad is once again facing charges of hit-and-run and vehicular homicide. She is currently being held in the Spokane County Jail on a $1 million bond, and her arraignment is pending.
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