A 16-year-old Glenbeulah girl struck and killed by an alleged drunken driver Tuesday night while walking in the Town of Scott knew the driver and had been with him at a house party minutes earlier, the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department revealed this morning.

Nikki Kehm, of 228 Kettle Ridge Circle, was walking on county Highway S about 9:30 p.m. when she was hit by a car driven by James R. Hunt, 19, of Plymouth, who fled the scene, said Capt. Cory Roeseler. The two had been at a party about a half-mile south of the crash site.

Tara Stiebs, 16, of Cascade, who was with Kehm at the time and was grazed by Hunt's car, said the girls were trying to catch up with Kehm's boyfriend, who had been kicked out of the party and was walking seven miles back to his home in Cascade. Stiebs said Hunt, the boyfriend and others had been drinking at the party, but she and Kehm had not.

Kehm was walking behind her friend on the gravel shoulder just south of county Highway W when Hunt's 2003 Pontiac Grand Am hit her from behind, throwing her 50 to 100 feet through the air into a ditch, Roeseler said. She died at the scene.

"Everything happened so fast. I remember all the sudden I heard this big bang, my arm hit something and then like my purse flew out of my arm," Stiebs said. "I look around and I'm just freaking out (thinking), Oh my gosh, where's Nikki?"

Stiebs called 911, screaming hysterically as she continued her search through the darkness.

"Oh my God, I'm on (highway) W, my friend just got hit!" she says on the 911 recording. "Oh, I found her! . Oh my God! Nikki! Oh my God! Nikki's dead!"

Stiebs said the scene she saw next will always be with her.

"All I can picture is her face, how her face looked when I moved her head toward me," Stiebs said in an interview this morning. "I just can't get it out of my mind."

Hunt's car never stopped, continuing northbound on Highway S, Stiebs said. She flagged down a car to help, then sprinted about a quarter-mile ahead to tell Kehm's boyfriend what had happened.

"(He) just ran to her and held her in his arms just screaming, 'No, don't be dead,'" Stiebs said.

Hunt was arrested about 11 p.m. at a friend's apartment in the 300 block of Madison Avenue in Cascade, Roeseler said. His car was found shortly before that in the 500 block of Johnson Drive.

Roeseler said Hunt was drunk and not fully aware of what had happened. He did not take a breath test, so his blood-alcohol level will not be known until the results of a blood test are available, in about 10 days.

"He was questioning and somewhat confused about the events that took place," Roeseler said.

Kehm was preparing to take her driver's test in about a week, and earlier Tuesday had been making plans with Stiebs to drive to the Mall of America and the Wisconsin Dells, her friend said. She would have been a junior at Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah High School.

Counselors will be available at the high school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Thursday, district officials said. Her teachers described Kehm as an enthusiastic art student with a quick smile and lots of friends.

Stiebs suffered bruises to her arm and did not receive medical treatment.

Investigators are not yet sure exactly where the girls were walking, but Roeseler said Hunt was at least partially outside the marked traffic lane when he struck them with the front passenger side of his car. Highway S is a 55 mph road with no hills or other features that would have obscured Hunt's view of the girls, Roeseler said.

Hunt, of 634 Carpenter St., has not been charged, but Roeseler said the sheriff's department will recommend charges of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and hit and run causing death. He is expected to be charged Thursday.

Cathy Kehm, Nikki's mother, said she will be in court for every hearing Hunt has in the case.

"I am going to be there to ensure that my daughter gets a fair shake, and I am going to push for the hardest, fullest extent of the law," she said. "There will be no plea deal, there will be no mercy. He had no mercy on my daughter. He left her . to die."

Hunt has previously been cited for underage drinking, online court records show.

Kehm is the sixth person killed this year on Sheboygan County roadways, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

The county's last fatal hit-and-run crash happened in August 2007, when illegal immigrant Eddie Carbajal-Lile, 27, crashed into a carload of teenagers and killed 17-year-old Paul Watry of Port Washington. Carbajal-Lile, who friends said was drinking before the crash, was sentenced in May to 15 years in prison.

The last pedestrian killed was Louis Sorce, a 54-year-old Plymouth man who was struck by a car and killed about 1 a.m. Dec. 31 while walking along county Highway PP in the Town of Plymouth wearing dark clothes. No charges were filed in the case.

Related Article(s): UPDATE: 16-year-old girl killed in hit-and-run crash knew driver

Read what people are saying about this article...