19-year-old pleads guilty to homicide

A Spokane woman accused of causing the death of her friend by driving recklessly pleaded guilty Monday to vehicular homicide.

Meaghan McKinney, 19, will face up to 27 months in jail.

On Feb. 21, McKinney attempted to jump a hill on Pratt Avenue, just east of Freya Street, in a Subaru Legacy. She lost control of the car and crashed into a pole.

The impact killed a passenger in the car, Morgan L. Pettengill Mueller, 17.

“Treating a car like an amusement car ride is fairly rare. It sometimes happens,” said Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Clint Francis. “There are tragic consequences for that.”

A third friend, Sean Glasgow, told police that McKinney and Pettengill Mueller came to his house and asked him to videotape them jumping the hill, according to court documents.

The three made one jump, documents say. Glasgow was then dropped off halfway down the hill to film the next attempt, which ended in the crash.

McKinney told police that she drove in the center of Pratt when jumping the hill to avoid parked vehicles, documents say. When she saw a car coming up Pratt, she braked and tried to turn to avoid it, but lost control and hit the pole.

Police determined that McKinney was driving about 60 mph, according to court documents. The speed limit there is 25 mph.

McKinney will be sentenced Oct. 8 in Spokane County Superior Court.

Messages left on Tuesday for McKinney and her attorney, Paul J. Wasson, were not returned.

“Fortunately in the last few years we haven’t had a great number of vehicular homicides,” Francis said. “This one was not typical in some ways in that it started out as kind of a lark. It turned out bad for them.”