Five felony charges filed in death of Mika Westwolf

Nearly seven months after Mika Westwolf was struck by a vehicle and killed north of Arlee, charges were filed Oct. 20 in the 20th District Court in Polson, and suspect Sunny Katherine White was arrested Saturday, Oct. 21, in Kalispell.

White, 28, was initially held in the Flathead County Jail on five felony charges. She posted bond of $200,000 and was released. Her first court appearance on Wednesday at the Lake County Courthouse was continued to Nov. 8 at the request of Sterling Lauden, the managing attorney for the Lake County Public Defender's Office. 

Sunny White made her initial appearance Wednesday at District Court in Lake County. (Photo by Jeff Smith)

 

White is charged with five felonies, including vehicular homicide while under the influence, or negligent homicide; accidents involving another person or deceased person for failing to stop at the scene of an accident and render aid; two counts of criminal child endangerment; and criminal possession of dangerous drugs. The charges carry a combined maximum of 65 years in prison. 

Westwolf was 22 at the time of her death on March 31, and in the ensuing months her family has continued to express frustration at what they believe was the slow pace of law enforcement to investigate and apprehend a suspect.

On Mika Matters, a website devoted to Westwolf, the family called the arrest “bittersweet.”

According to court documents, Flathead Tribal Officer T.J. Haynes discovered Westwolf’s body just north of Arlee at 4:15 a.m. March 31 after noticing vehicle debris in the traffic lane and a body lying next to the fog line. Based on the debris, law enforcement began looking for a silver, grey or gold vehicle, driving north on Highway 93 with a missing passenger-side rearview mirror. A part number obtained from the wreckage narrowed the search to a 2007-2013 GM or Cadillac SUV or truck.

At 5:23 a.m., Lake County Deputy Keith Deetz noticed a gold 2008 Cadillac Escalade with front-end damage and a missing passenger-side rearview mirror parked near Polson. A woman, later identified as White, was moving items from the Escalade into another vehicle.

She told the officer she had hit a deer and her vehicle was overheating. White’s two young children, ages 2 and 4, were in the vehicle.

According to court records, White told the officer she was passing a bottle to her youngest child and didn’t see the deer. She also told Highway Patrolman Tyler Dager, who took over the investigation, that she was driving her children from Butte to Kalispell for the weekend.

Dager seized her vehicle and had it impounded at a secure facility, and asked White to perform field sobriety maneuvers, which led him to believe she might be under the influence of opiates.

He obtained a search warrant for a blood draw, and a sample was collected at 7:55 a.m. at St. Joseph Hospital and sent to the State Crime Lab for analysis, which later revealed that her blood contained both fentanyl and methamphetamine.

After Dager obtained a search warrant for White’s vehicle, troopers discovered small makeup tube containing meth, five syringes and two packages of Narcan.

Meanwhile, Highway Patrol Trooper Wayne Bieber was documenting the crash scene and collecting debris. According to court documents, evidence at the scene indicated that Westwolf was walking south in the northbound lane or near the fog line when she was struck by the suspect’s vehicle. She appeared to have been hit in the right leg and hip in “a head-on fashion” that propelled her body towards the ditch on the north side of the road. According to the document, “Mika died on scene from multiple blunt force injuries.”

Westwolf’s brother, Davian Howard, was interviewed, and said he and his sister had driven to the Four Star Bar in Ravalli that evening to buy cigarettes. On the way back to Arlee, they stopped at North Valley Creek, about five miles north of the crash scene.

According to the report, Westwolf walked away from the vehicle, leaving her cell phone behind. Her brother tried to find her, and upon calling her discovered that her phone was in his vehicle. According to cell-phone records, that call was made around 1:13 a.m.

Trooper Bieber inspected surveillance video from a business near the crash scene and noticed that at 3 a.m. a vehicle drove toward the crash scene, applied its brakes and slowed down while a second vehicle approached and also applied its brakes.

Cell phone data obtained with a warrant indicates that White left Butte after midnight and would have been at the crash scene at 3 a.m.

A concerned citizen, traveling north on Highway 93 that morning, reported to law enforcement that he had seen a “Suburban-like vehicle or Chevy Tahoe pulled off on the side of the road near the crash scene that morning.” He reported that it was facing north and noticed a headlight was out. He also told officers the vehicle then passed him traveling north “going 90 miles per hour.”

White was initially arrested for DUI but was released pending results of the toxicology report. She was also cited for two counts of child criminal endangerment, which were dismissed without prejudice pending crime lab results.

At the time, Lake County Attorney James Lapotka also confirmed that her Cadillac Escalade was being investigated by the Montana Highway Patrol as the vehicle involved in hitting Westwolf.

White was charged in Butte-Silver Bow District Court May 18 for parental interference and burglary, both felonies, for allegedly breaking into the home of her children’s father on April 7 and taking the two kids, named Aryan and Nation. She was also charged with one count of misdemeanor criminal mischief.

White is believed to ascribe to white nationalist ideology, which has led organizations such as the Montana Human Rights Network to encourage prosecutors to consider whether Westwolf’s death could be considered a hate crime.

In a statement Monday, Lapotka thanked the Montana Highway Patrol, Flathead Tribal Police and Lake County Sheriff “for their hard work investigating this difficult and complicated case. And I want to thank the community for their patience.”

A statement posted Saturday at MikaMatters.com, reads, “as we mark seven months since Mika’s tragic passing, it is essential to acknowledge that this arrest is just the beginning of the journey towards justice.”

The family has also sought to raise awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and organized a walk last June from Arlee to Polson to attract attention to Westwolf’s case, as well as the deaths of three other young Indigenous people killed in hit-and-run incidents.

According to a statement on the site, “While there is a sense of relief and satisfaction that charges are finally being pressed, it also serves as a painful reminder of the ongoing struggles faced by countless families in the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) movement.”