Prosecutors have formally charged a teenager accused of crashing a stolen pickup truck during a fatal police chase in Westminster.
The Denver Post reports 19-year-old Ignacio Daigle appeared in court Tuesday on charges of vehicular homicide, eluding, leaving the scene of a fatal crash and motor vehicle theft.
Investigators say he was driving the truck March 8 while being chased by officers when he intentionally crossed a roadway median, striking an SUV driven by 33-year-old Jessica Holman, of Thornton. Holman was killed in the crash.
MORE | Woman killed in crash with car thieves fleeing from cops identified as Jessica Holman
According to an arrest affidavit, Daigle was driving recklessly, failed to stop at several red lights and was passing vehicles at a high rate of speed at the tail end of rush hour.
-- Events leading up to the deadly crash --
Westminster Police told Denver7 two men stole a Ford F-350 pickup truck and a trailer with two off-road vehicles from a house in the area of Wadsworth Boulevard and West 88th Avenue. The owner saw the thieves and began to follow them and called police.
Patrol officers caught up with the stolen truck as the driver was headed northbound on Wadsworth Parkway. Moments later police activated their lights and sirens in the area of West 94th Avenue and Wadsworth and tried to make a traffic stop.
They say that's when the driver of the stolen truck veered across the median and into the southbound lanes, striking Holman's car head-on. She was pronounces dead at the scene.
MORE | Car thieves fleeing from Westminster Police hit, kill woman during chase
