This photo of Erika Cruz, who died from injuries sustained in a two-vehicle crash Tuesday in Rochester, appears on Facebook and was posted on a GoFundMe page that was set up to pay funeral expenses.
St. Thomas first-year student Erika Cruz died as a result of injuries in a car crash that, according to Olmsted County authorities, involved an impaired driver Tuesday night in Rochester.
Sterling Royce Haukom, 34, of Rochester, was charged with felony-level criminal vehicular homicide after crashing into a vehicle that was driven by Cruz in a residential neighborhood in the city, according to a criminal complaint. Haukom was also charged with one count of driving while impaired, a gross misdemeanor.
The complaint said that at around 10:22 p.m. Tuesday, Haukom was driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck that appeared to be heading northbound on 8th Avenue Southeast in Rochester when it T-boned a Volkswagen Passat driven by Cruz that appeared to be eastbound on 12th Street Southeast.
A witness at the scene described Haukom as driving “really fast,” the complaint said.
Cruz was taken to St. Marys Hospital, and later, according to the complaint, died of her injuries.
Rochester police said that a St. Thomas ID with Cruz’s name was found in the vehicle. According to Cruz’s Facebook profile, she was an exercise science major at St. Thomas who had attended Mayo High School in Rochester.
The university said in a statement Thursday that the Center for Campus Ministry “has been in contact with Erika’s family and we join her loved ones in grieving this tragic loss. We pray for comfort for her family and friends.”
A GoFundMe campaign for Cruz was started to help pay for funeral expenses, and had raised more than $9,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
This is the second death involving a student in the St. Thomas community this school year. In December, sophomore Kyra Winslow died in a car crash on Interstate 94 in Wisconsin.
Justin Amaker can be reached at justin.amaker@stthomas.edu.