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The family of a teenager who died over the weekend near St. Louis is demanding to know why it took days for them to learn she had been struck by a sheriff’s deputy’s vehicle, alleging authorities initially framed the incident as a hit-and-run.
Persephone Berger, 16, was hit by a deputy who was responding to a call for a person who was unresponsive and lying in the road early Saturday morning in Missouri’s St. Francois County, according to a statement from the St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department that was released Monday.
The deputy arrived around 3:40 a.m. and saw the vehicle of the person who made the call with its hazard lights on. While approaching, the deputy didn’t see Berger lying on the road and hit her, the sheriff’s office said in its statement. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Preliminary findings from an autopsy found Berger had injuries consistent with being hit by the deputy’s vehicle and found no evidence of any previously existing injuries. Officials were still waiting on the results of the toxicology report, and the sheriff’s department did not indicate if a cause of death had been determined. It was not clear why Berger was lying in the road unresponsive.
Berger was described in her obituary as “a caring and compassionate young woman, always ready with a smile and a kind word for everyone she met.” She was also a “passionate member of her school choir” and “filled the halls with her beautiful voice and infectious enthusiasm,” it said.
Berger’s aunt, Kimberly Cabuchola, says her niece snuck out of the house to go to a neighborhood party and was returning home when she was hit. Now, she wants to know why it took so long to learn about her niece getting hit by the deputy.
“They blatantly lied to us and said she was involved in a hit-and-run,” Cabuchola told CBS News. She also said nobody contacted Berger’s father about his daughter’s death except for the coroner.
The sheriff’s office in its statement insisted the deputy never left the scene and immediately notified his supervisor. It also said the incident was not the result of what it called “false social media claims of a vehicle pursuit.”
The Missouri State Highway Patrol will lead an independent investigation into the crash while the sheriff’s office is still investigating what led up to Berger being found on the road prior to being hit by the deputy, officials from both agencies said.
“I do not have a timeline from the sheriff’s office of what they talked to the family about or when,” Missouri State Highway Patrol spokesperson Sgt. Dallas Thompson told CBS News.
The deputy involved in the incident has not been identified and his status was unclear. The St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment.
Cabuchola said the family is “not going to stop until they tell the truth.”
