By Dan Nienaber
MANKATO — MSU athletic director and women’s cross country coach address situation at press conference.
Only some yellow paint and a growing pile of flowers marked the spot Wednesday where 18-year-old Catherine Delwiche lost her life.
Mike Thomas started the memorial in the patch of green space next to the Mankato Church of Christ parking lot. He jogged up to the area where Delwiche was hit by an SUV Tuesday and dropped a bouquet of purple, yellow and orange flowers.
He didn’t know Delwiche, but he’s a runner and said it would have felt wrong to run past the spot, the same spot he’s ambled by a couple of hundred times, without paying tribute to the freshman Minnesota State University student. He’d read she was a member of the cross country team and training for a meet when she was hit.
A group of Delwiche’s friends were there when Thomas jogged by at lunchtime Wednesday. They had spent the night at the hospital, where Laura Palmer, also 18 and a cross country team member, was being treated for injuries she received in the crash near the MSU campus at about 4 p.m. Tuesday. Palmer was riding her bike next to Delwiche when Dale Hoechst, 57, crossed a lane of traffic, hit the curb and plowed into the women.
Alex Johnson, a friend of both women, said Palmer remembers everything about the tragic crash.
“She got hit first and was lying on her side when she saw Caty flying over her head,” Johnson said. “Laura got up and tried to help her, but Caty didn’t have a pulse.”
Johnson was one of dozens of people who visited Palmer and comforted Delwiche’s family and friends at Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital Tuesday night. Clark Fillbrandt of Glencoe said his son wanted to be there but was too distraught to travel to Mankato after hearing that Delwiche, his date for last year’s prom at Glencoe-Silver Lake High School, was dead.
Fillbrandt was in Mankato on business Wednesday. He introduced himself to Johnson and three of Delwiche’s other college friends as they were leaving to get more flowers to add to the memorial Thomas had started.
Delwiche’s brother had called Fillbrandt’s son, Kenny, to tell him about the crash. A trip to Mankato was in the planning stages when Kenny found out how bad the crash was, his father said.
“He wanted to drive down right away, but I wouldn’t let him,” Clark Fillbrandt said. “I told him I’d meet him and we’d drive down together. When I finally got ahold of him again, he was just bawling uncontrollably and said Caty was dead.
“She was the greatest kid you could ever meet. She was intelligent, sweet, polite, an all-around great kid. She was the kind of child every parent wishes was their own — you wish every kid could turn out like her.”
Friends of the victims weren’t the only people gathering at the scene of the deadly crash Wednesday. Leaders from the State Patrol’s Mankato District office hosted a news conference there after the incident drew statewide attention.
They took questions from the media and explained it could be awhile before investigators have any solid answers as to why Hoechst’s Honda SUV crossed a lane of traffic, jumped the curb and traveled more than 50 yards before hitting the Church of Christ’s large sign.
So far, they know Delwiche and Palmer were on the sidewalk and had their backs to Hoechst’s vehicle, which was traveling south on Warren Street, said Lt. Dan Hilligoss. Instead of following a slight curve in the road, Hoechst crossed the northbound lane, hit the women, drove over a junction telephone box and finally stopped when his SUV hit the church’s large sign.
There was no evidence Hoechst attempted to stop before the collision, Hilligoss said. There also were no signs he had been drinking or obvious indicators suggesting there might be a medical problem. Hoechst provided a statement to police and volunteered to give a blood sample.
Investigators don’t know, at this point, if he had somehow been distracted.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of answers for you right now,” Hilligoss said. “It’s a tragedy. Someone is not here today who was here yesterday. Someone who had a bright future.”
Joe Hoehn lives four blocks from the crash scene and serves as the treasurer at the church. He also knows Hoechst — they bowled together on a traveling team last year — and was surprised to see him sitting in the Honda when he ran over to the church after the crash.
The church sign had crashed through Hoechst’s windshield, the vehicle’s air bag had inflated and Hoechst still looked disoriented several minutes after the crash, Hoehn said.
“He was sitting there so dazed he couldn’t open the door,” Hoehn said.
Hoehn mowed the church lawn Wednesday morning, so the telling tire tracks were almost gone. Only the slightly bent church sign, the yellow paint and the people adding to the growing memorial provided clues that something tragic had happened.
Thomas was running before he dropped that first bouquet, but he just walked down Warren Street to his house at the bottom of the hill.
“It didn’t feel right running away,” he said. “It did feel right running there, though.”
