A 33-year-old man has been charged with vehicular homicide after he allegedly crashed into the back of a motorcycle on U.S. 285, killing a 53-year-old Wheat Ridge man and dragged the motorcycle several hundred feet before running away.
Ian Fitzgerald O’Connor, 33, has also been charged with drunken driving, reckless driving and leaving the scene of a fatal crash, according to a news release by Pam Russell, spokeswoman for Jefferson County District Attorney Peter Weir.
Paul Dacko Sr., 53, was killed in the Aug. 29 crash on U.S. 285 at C-470.
Witnesses claimed O’Connor was driving recklessly in the highway’s northbound lanes when he slammed into the back of Dacko’s motorcycle.
Although Dacko and the motorcycle were trapped beneath O’Connor’s car he dragged them for several hundred feet until he crashed into a concrete barrier and threw Dacko into the southbound lanes of U.S. 285.
Even then O’Connor continued driving with the motorcycle still caught beneath the car until the car wouldn’t go any further, the news release says.
O’Connor then ran to a Phillips 66 gas station in Morrison where he was arrested.
O’Connor was also charged with having fictitious plates, failing to report an accident, striking a traffic device and driving an unregistered vehicle, Russell wrote.
O’Connor was released on a $100,000 bond on Aug. 30. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 6.
