Identical twins accused of swapping places charged with killing 2 Amish children after car rear-ends carriage
Identical twins from Minnesota are accused of swapping places after one of them, allegedly driving high on a rural highway, rear-ended an Amish horse-drawn carriage and killed two children.
Police spent months building the case before announcing charges.
But, according to one expert, the damning evidence might not be as strong as it appears.
Prosecutors now allege Samantha Jo Petersen was behind the wheel Sept. 25, 2023, when a motor vehicle slammed into a horse-drawn carriage, killing two children and injuring their two siblings.
It was not her identical twin sister, Sarah Beth Petersen, who took responsibility at the scene, who was driving, the prosecutors say.
Authorities said the crash killed 7-year-old Wilma Miller and 11-year-old Irma Miller and sent two of their siblings, ages 9 and 13, to the hospital.
Samantha Petersen had an expired driver’s license and no insurance for her silver Toyota 4Runner at the time of the crash, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
Sheriff John DeGeorge told local media in February dozens of charges had been filed against the sisters after a “lengthy investigation” found suspicious “inconsistencies” that later led to the unraveling of the alleged plot.
“Sarah was on scene a short time before our first deputy arrived,” he said in televised remarks. “That allowed them to come up with this story where Sarah would take responsibility for the crash and start to mislead the investigation from that very point.”
When police arrived, she told them she was the driver and that she hit the buggy.
The sisters allegedly pulled off the switcheroo because Samantha Petersen was high on drugs at the time of the crash and was scared she’d be sent to prison, according to court documents.
Sarah had recently been in prison as well, according to the filings, and may have felt she owed her sister a favor for taking care of her kids while she was locked up.
Responding officers allegedly found “a couple of burnt marijuana blunts” and a tin can of pot in the crashed vehicle, and investigators later found evidence she was also using methamphetamine.
An officer left his recorder running and walked away during the investigation, and it also allegedly recorded Samantha Petersen telling her sister, “I think one of the guys is onto me, but I really don’t care … there’s no way they would ever know the difference between the two of us, so they can’t tell.”
