A day or two after a bicyclist was fatally struck in a hit-and-run accident in St. Paul in November, authorities say Dustin Hegner Royce showed up to his landscaping job with damage to the front end of his mom’s Hyundai Santa Fe.
His boss told police that Hegner Royce had the midsized SUV parked on the side of the property so the damage couldn’t be easily seen. The 28-year-old said he struck a deer, according to authorities.
Shortly thereafter, the vehicle was gone, Hegner Royce’s boss told police.
While investigators continue to search for the vehicle, they are no longer looking for the people they believe are to blame for a fatal hit-and-run that left Jose Hernandez Solano lying motionless on the street at the intersection of Grand Avenue and West Seventh in St. Paul.
Authorities on Friday charged both Hegner Royce and his mother, Abbey Hegner, for their respective roles in the deadly collision, according to criminal complaints filed against them in Ramsey County District Court.
Hegner Royce faces two counts of criminal vehicular homicide for allegedly driving the car that struck 52-year-old Hernandez Solano as he biked home from his job at Brasa Rotisserie on Nov. 26.
Hegner, 47, faces two counts of aiding an offender for allegedly helping her son cover up the crime, authorities say.
The two were arrested and questioned in connection with the case in December but were released without being charged. They were arrested again Friday morning.
“It’s very somber for the fact that this doesn’t bring him back by any means, but at least there seems to be some accountability coming out of it,” said Megan Gall, the general manager of St. Paul’s Brasa location. “They are finally suffering the consequences of their poor actions.”
SUV RAN RED LIGHT, STRUCK BICYCLIST
Hernandez Solano was biking home from his job as a dishwasher at Brasa on Grand Avenue — he was wearing a helmet and had front and rear bicycle lights — when he entered the intersection of Grand and West Seventh. That’s when an SUV ran a red light and struck him at 12:10 a.m.
Hernandez Solano suffered head and spinal injuries and was taken by ambulance to a hospital. The driver of the SUV fled.
Hernandez Solano died Dec. 7 after being taken off life support.
ANONYMOUS TIP LED POLICE TO MOTHER AND SON
Evidence collected at the crash scene pointed to a “platinum sage” metallic Hyundai Santa Fe from 2008 through 2010. Police subsequently filed several search warrants as they tried to identify the driver.
They began to circle in on Abbey Hegner and Dustin Hegner Royce after a tip that a vehicle matching the description was often seen at Keenan’s Bar.
The tipster provided a license plate, which police traced to Hegner, legal documents say.
Keenan’s, at West Seventh Street and Western Avenue, is about a half-mile west of the crash site. The hit-and-run vehicle was westbound on Seventh Street, police have said.
Hegner was working as a bartender at Keenan’s at the time.
A patron at the bar that night told the bar manager that he witnessed Hegner Royce drive up to the establishment minutes after the crash, according to details in a search warrant.
His mother was outside smoking a cigarette, the patron said. The two talked briefly before Hegner went inside and told her boss she needed to leave, court documents say.
Another patron who was outside with Hegner told officers that Hegner Royce ran up and said, “Mom, I need your help,” before the two left, according to legal documents.
Hegner reportedly told her boss she had needed to leave because her son’s girlfriend was suicidal. She would later give police a different reason she left when she was arrested Dec. 15.
Her boss told police she seemed “upset like he has never seen before” at the time, the search warrant application said.
PHONE CALLS, VIDEO EVIDENCE
Searches of Hegner’s phone showed multiple outgoing and incoming calls starting at 12:23 a.m. on Nov. 26. The phone traveled through Mendota Heights, St. Paul and South St. Paul during that period, legal documents say.
One of the phone numbers that repeatedly contacted her is registered as one of her old numbers, which was being used at the time by her son, the search warrant application said.
Another was registered to the mother of Hegner Royce’s girlfriend.
Video captured around the time of the crash at a nearby Holiday gas station reportedly shows the suspect vehicle as well as someone matching Hegner Royce’s description.
Other surveillance footage reportedly traced the SUV’s path from the crash site back to Kellogg Boulevard and over the Wabasha Bridge, the criminal complaint said.
The footage shows the vehicle speeding, illegally passing other vehicles and ignoring traffic signs as it makes its way toward the intersection of West Seventh and Grand Avenue, authorities say.
Afterward, footage shows the vehicle with what appeared to be front-end damage near Mancini’s Char House, a restaurant a short distance from Keenan’s, the complaint said.
In a recorded jailhouse phone conversation made after her December arrest in the case, Hegner reportedly told someone the police didn’t have any evidence, legal documents say.
Hegner Royce told officers he had no memory of being at a Holiday gas station the night of the collision or picking up his mother, according to the criminal complaint.
When police showed up at his home on Dec. 18, his girlfriend said “she knew why they were there,” but that she hadn’t seen the vehicle in question for months, legal documents say.
She also allegedly told police that she was not suicidal on Nov. 26, as Hegner had told her boss.
SUSPECT VEHICLE STILL MISSING
Many of the search warrants filed in the case appeared aimed at trying to determine whether Hegner was lying about the whereabouts of her Hyundai Santa Fe, which police have been unable to locate.
After her earlier arrest, Hegner told police she sold the vehicle to an “unknown Mexican or Somali male” whom she had been unable to understand for $3,000 four days before the deadly crash, court documents say.
But a search warrant conducted at Hegner’s home found a bag containing the vehicle’s owner’s manual, and other paperwork also had receipts for Burger King and McDonald’s dated two days before the collision, the complaint said.
Video footage from Burger King showed a vehicle matching the description of the suspect vehicle at the drive-thru window with a driver matching Hegner Royce’s description, authorities say.
Hegner also reportedly admitted to officers that she still had a $5,000 lien on the SUV at the time of the sale that she’s continuing to make payments on.
Hegner Royce’s criminal history includes convictions for driving after his license was suspended, petty-misdemeanor-level drug possession, possession of a pistol without a permit and possession of a dangerous weapon.
Hegner’s criminal history includes three alcohol-related driving offenses.
Neither has a felony on their record.
The mother and son were in custody Friday afternoon and could not be reached for comment.
VICTIM WAS FATHER, AVID CYCLIST
Hernandez Solano was a father of three and one of 13 children.His three children all reside in Mexico near the city of Leon.
He came to Minnesota about 20 years ago for work, Gall said.
Gall said she was in touch with his family Friday morning.
“I think it just brings up some hard feelings but it’s good that it will hopefully start the process of getting some closure,” she said.