Witnesses describe girl's death on highway

Crystal Brown, 19, left, Nicole Dutra, 19, both of Carson City, and Kendall Wilkin, 18, of Minden, talk about the accident they witnessed on Highway 395 early Friday morning. | Photo by Randy Wrighthouse

The girl hit by several cars and killed early Friday morning on Highway 395 in Washoe Valley was standing in the slow lane and waving both arms just before the accident, according to three young Carson City women who drove up just before she was killed.

The three said they were returning from a movie in Reno when they came upon a small, white sedan with blinkers flashing stopped on the right shoulder about a mile north of Bellevue Road.

Crystal Brown said she had just slowed and moved into the left lane after seeing three deer on the right side of the road near the Bowers Mansion exit.

"It was really dark -- you seriously could not see her at all," said the 19-year-old Brown.

Brown passed the white car and saw the girl, wearing a light-colored skirt or shorts and a dark tank top, and pulled over beyond them, thinking they might need help. Brown and two friends, Nicole Dutra and Kendall Wilkin, waited in the car and feeling unsure whether they should get out.

"We were scared to get out of the car because we didn't know if they were scary people or not," said Dutra, who turned 19 on Saturday.

The friends watched behind them and saw the girls outside of the car, talking with the one who was standing on the highway, Brown said.

As Brown and her friends waited by the side of the road they were passed by a truck and, then, the white car as it drove off.

Brown pulled back onto the highway and came upon the truck, which had pulled off with its blinkers flashing. Brown pulled over again.

"This guy's car was all messed up," Dutra said. "It was leaking fluids and all dented."

Brown said she knocked on the window to ask if he wanted to use her cell phone, but he sat there in a daze.

Two more cars pulled over, one a white, 2003 Mitsubishi Lancer with blood on the hood, the other a white BMW.

The man in the BMW spoke to the girls.

"He was like, 'I think there's a body back there -- I don't know if it's real or not,'" Brown said.

The driver of the Lancer suggested they drive back to see what it was so Brown and Dutra climbed into her car and backed up to a bloody shape on the highway.

"I was like, 'I think its a deer,'" said Brown, remembering the animals near the Bowers exit.

"But Nicole was like, 'No Crystal, she has a face -- it's a girl.'"

The girl, a tall blond, was laying on her side on the pavement.

"(Her clothes) got ripped off," Dutra said. She and Brown said they thought the girl had been murdered and dumped there.

"She was kind of twisted with her legs to the side," Brown said. "Kind of in a fetal position."

The girls drove back to the other cars.

"Cars must have been running over her thinking it was a deer or something," Dutra said.

Brown and a young man went back to the body to see what they could do.

"I had him park his car in front of her body and turn his flashers on so nobody else would hit her," she said. She also called 911.

"(The emergency dispatchers) wanted me to go back out and check for breathing or a pulse and I was like, 'I don't want to -- I can't touch her,'" she said. There was no doubt the girl was dead.

Around this time the white car that had left backed up to where the other cars were stopped.

"I heard the girl say, 'Is she okay? You need to help her -- you need to help my friend,' but the guy was like, 'we can't help her -- there's nothing we can do," Dutra said.

Dutra said the man told them they needed to stay at the scene, but they drove away again.

"They left the scene, but they called a few hours later and we met with them," said Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Paul Morris. He would not say whether charges would be filed.

The identity of the victim and the two others she was with had not been released at press time.

Brown said the girls "were like our age -- like 19 or 20."

The three friends are angry with the girls who drove away after the girl was hit.

"It's totally ridiculous," Wilkin said.

"I just don't understand how you could just leave your friend, even if you're mad at them -- even if it's your enemy," Brown said.

Steven Conroy, a 49-year-old man from Carson City was the first to hit the girl, according to NHP reports. He was arrested by Washoe County Sheriff's Deputies and booked on suspicion of driving under the influence causing death.

He is free on $20,000 bail, Morris said.

According to Morris, Conroy said a car in front of him hit the girl first, sending her through the air and down onto his Yukon.

"That's not consistent with our investigation," Morris said. "The contact damage on his vehicle was from the bottom of the front end, under the bumper, all the way upward including the hood area."

An investigation into the accident is ongoing. Anyone with information should call Trooper Chris Kelly at 689-4661.

YOU CAN HELP

Anyone with information about the accident on Highway 395 in Washoe Valley on Friday morning should call Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Chris Kelly at 689-4661.