Fulton man charged in Columbia pedestrian death
UPDATE 9/9: The Grand Jury has indicted Ralph Ringer with second degree murder and leaving the scene of an accident, according to official court documents.
UPDATE:Ringer is set to be in court on Thursday at 1:30 at the Boone County Courthouse.
The Boone County Prosecutor’s Office filed charges over the weekend against a Fulton man suspected of killing a pedestrian.
Ralph Ringer, Jr., 56, was arrested for involuntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident, and will be held on a $100,000 cash-only bond. Ringer is suspected of killing 36-year-old Kiran Lamichhane outside ABC Labs in east Columbia on July 1, where Lamichhane worked. Police suspect that Ringer was drunk at the time of the crash, and faces a July 7 court date.
Columbia police responded to Lamichhane’s death around 12:30 p.m. alongside the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The 36-year-old employee of ABC Labs was found on the north side of ABC Lane, a dead-end road just north of the 133 exit of Interstate 70. Lamichhane died at the hospital. Kristein King, ABC Labs vice president of marketing and communication, told ABC 17 News that Lamichhane was a staff scientist at the lab who started work in 2014.
A probable cause statement cites several witnesses in regards to the crash, and Ringer’s alleged driving before the incident on ABC Lane. One witness claimed she followed a silver sedan down ABC Lane, watching it swerve from the side of the road to the center multiple times. Suddenly, the witness watched the car hit Lamichhane “go into the air above the height of the car” and land in the grass off the road. An ABC Labs employee received an “emergency call” about the crash, then stopped the silver car as it began turning the other way on ABC Labs, away from the business. That employee told police he tried helping the man out of the car, but the driver fell to the ground when he got to the front of the car.
The car’s registration belonged to Ringer, who is deaf. Police interviewed him on scene by writing notes, and conducted a preliminary breath test “that read .131.” Officers later interviewed Ringer with a sign language interpreter, where Ringer denied being in an accident, and only drinking a bit that day and had taken pain medication. A second breath test resulted in a .075 blood alcohol content.
Two drivers on I-70 between Fulton and Columbia called 9-1-1 to report a silver sedan swerving from the shoulder to the center line. One truck even put on its hazard lights while driving behind the car, “trying to warn upcoming traffic.” The second caller later told CPD it appeared the driver “was either drunk or falling asleep.”
(Editor’s note, 7/5, 4:30 p.m.: An earlier version of the story spelled the victim’s last name as Lamicchane. The victim’s last name is correctly spelled Lamichhane.)
