Woman charged with ATV driver’s death

PALMER — A woman driving a car that struck and killed an ATV rider in November has been charged with criminally negligent homicide.

Caleb Younger, 25, was driving a Yamaha ATV on Big Lake Road when he was struck and killed at around 10:30 p.m., Nov. 23. He was riding in the road, which is against the law, and was not wearing a helmet, Alaska State Troopers said at the time. He died at the scene.

Sierra Mahnke, 24, was driving the Ford Taurus that struck the ATV near Birch Lake Drive.

On June 27 a Palmer grand jury saw fit to charge her with criminally negligent homicide and driving under the influence.

Most DUI cases are charged within days of the traffic stop or accident that prompted troopers to respond. Many of the ones that, like this one, take months to reach a courtroom are waiting on toxicology results. The state sends blood samples Outside for testing, hence the wait time.

The Anchorage Daily News, in reporting based on documents troopers filed in court, says that those results, in Mahnke’s case, show traces of morphine and oxycodone in her system.

Mahnke has another outstanding case in Palmer court for methamphetamine possession. In February she allegedly tried to hide drugs under her seat when troopers pulled her over for a minor traffic violation at Mile 45, Parks Highway.

Mahnke was quoted in a 2011 Frontiersman story when she graduated from Burchell High School. She told the audience she had dropped out of school at 16, gotten into a serious traffic accident at age 17, spent years overcoming her injuries, and finally went back to school.

“I’m now in my 20s and I’m finally getting my diploma,” Mahnke said in 2011.

As of Wednesday afternoon Mahnke was still listed as an inmate of the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility. Her bail was set at her court appearance at $10,000. As a class B felony, the homicide charge she faces carries a potential term of up to 10 years in prison.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.