Manslaughter charges filed in crash that killed pedestrian

CLEARWATER -- A Clearwater man was arrested on a manslaughter charge based on suspicion he was drunk behind the wheel and struck and killed a pedestrian late Wednesday night.

Clearwater police said David Ralph Kennedy, 33, struck a 28-year-old woman as she walked on the shoulder of the road in the 2400 block of NE Coachman Road about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday. The woman was thrown into a ditch, where she later was pronounced dead.

Police said Kennedy kept driving his 1992 Ford Ranger pickup east after the impact, finally pulling into a Wal-Mart parking lot less than a mile away. There, Kennedy approached a police officer who was in a car writing a report.

Kennedy told the officer he thought he hit something. The officer drove west and found the woman's body in the swale, police said.

Police said Kennedy, of 2759 Navel Drive, struck the woman as he failed to navigate a gentle curve in the road. He later told police in an interview that he "knew he had struck something he thought was a person, possibly," an affidavit said.

Police charged Kennedy with DUI-manslaughter after he performed poorly on field sobriety tests, an arrest affidavit said.

Investigators also charged him with leaving the scene of a crash involving death, even though he stopped to let the officer know he thought he struck something. It is a felony to not stop at a crash involving death to render aid.

"He did leave the scene," police spokesman Wayne Shelor said.

Investigators determined the woman who was killed lived near where she was struck. Though they had tentatively identified her Thursday, police had not yet found her family and did not release her name. Her family lives out of the state, Shelor said.

Police shut down NE Coachman Road for about five hours between Old Coachman Road and El Taire Trail as officers investigated the woman's death.

Kennedy has a 7-year-old son and works as a bike builder at Huffy Service First, his wife, Beth, said.

"He's never been in any trouble," she said Thursday afternoon. "I know what he's been charged with and I know he shouldn't have been driving. It's a horrible thing. I feel horrible."

Kennedy was held without bail at the Pinellas County Jail.

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