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Background: Melissa Howes (Jefferson County State’s Attorney’s Office). Inset: Melissa Howes (Illinois Department of Corrections).
A woman who “intentionally” ran over her husband with a car said she has no idea how it happened when she first spoke to authorities on the night of Sept. 2, 2024.
“I don’t know how we got here,” Melissa K. Howes, 55, told investigators outside a Dollar General in the rural village of Dix, Illinois, as seen on police body camera video. Before breaking down in apparent distress, Howes said she had been with a work friend at the time of the incident.
But Howes would go onto plead guilty in March to first-degree murder and aggravated DUI charges. In exchange, she received a 20-year prison sentence. Prosecutors said she “intentionally” ran over Jeffrey Howes, 49.
Surveillance footage from a nearby apartment complex showed her pushing her husband to the ground, getting into her car, and backing up the vehicle before speeding forward to crush him, authorities said. First responders found him under the vehicle; a deputy and bystander reportedly had to jack the vehicle off the ground so paramedics could work on trying to save him.
“Can you tell me how much husband is doing?” she asked a deputy with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office after authorities brought her to a hospital in handcuffs.
Authorities said she showed signs of being drunk.
“Evidence of alcohol impairment was observed with Melissa and Sheriff’s Office Detectives were contacted to assist,” the sheriff’s office said in a September press release. “Upon completion of the investigation, Melissa Howes was arrested for the crime of Aggravated DUI involving a Death and transported to the Jefferson County Justice Center.”
Authorities only relayed drunkenness as a motive. At the time of the incident, a deputy asked her how much she drank that night.
“Too much, evidentially,” she said.