Wolcott police have arrested a man who is accused of running a woman over in a driveway, killing her.
Police said 37-year-old Alexandra Standish was run over in a driveway on Central Avenue early on the morning of Feb. 10.
Wolcott police said Bristol police contacted them around 3 a.m. on Feb. 10 after they were called to Bristol Hospital for an untimely death.
Police said they learned that Standish’s boyfriend, Brandon Hamel, had brought her to the hospital to be treated for serious internal and external injuries and she later died.
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Hamel told Bristol police that she was injured at their home, but he was uncooperative with information leading up to Standish’s death, according to Wolcott police.
Wolcott police then responded to Bristol Hospital and began investigating, That was when they gained information that a vehicle might have run Standish over while she was standing in her driveway, police said.
Connecticut State Police Major Crimes Unit was then contacted and responded to the residence.
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Wolcott police said their investigation, which included viewing footage from a Ring camera, showed that Standish, Hamel and a close friend, 31-year-old James Sadlowski, of Meriden, had been drinking alcoholic beverages at a local restaurant until approximately 1 a.m.
The three of them then went back to the house in two separate vehicles, police said.
As Sadlowski started to back out of the driveway, he hit Standish, who was standing behind his pickup, police said.
Police said Standish was unconscious on the driveway and the two men did not call 911 and there was a long delay before they tried to help her.
The two men lifted Standish and put her in Hamel's vehicle and he took her to Bristol Hospital, police said.
Sadlowski left and went to a motel in Meriden, police said.
Surveillance video at the hospital showed that Hamel was in no rush to get her care, according to police, and they said they did not see any urgency to get hospital staff to get her out of the vehicle.
Police also said he was uncooperative and blocked staff from getting to Standish who was slumped over in the front passenger seat.
Emergency care was provided, but Standish died from her injuries.
Police Chief Edward Stephens said they had been called to the Central Avenue home for domestic incidents on several occasions in the past. He said a restraining order preventing Hamel from contacting Standish had just been dropped the day before the incident.
“We initially thought that Hamel, the boyfriend, who she had domestics with, who’d just got arrested not even a week earlier at the house,” Stephens said. “He was the suspect in the beginning.”
James Sadlowski was charged with manslaughter in the second degree, intentional cruelty to persons, failure to renew motor vehicle registration, illegal operation of a motor vehicle under suspension of an operator’s license, illegal operation of a motor vehicle with no Insurance and evading responsibility that caused a death.
His bond was initially set at $500,000, but lowered ti $250,000.
Sadlowski appeared in court on Friday and has been ordered not to operate a motor vehicle. He is due in court on April 24.
Standish’s boyfriend is recovering from serious injuries after a motorcycle crash a couple of weeks after the incident.
Police said he will be arrested when he is discharged and will be charged with interfering with a police investigation and intentional cruelty to a person. The court set his bond at $100,000.
Jessica Tepper, Standish’s friend, said she’ll remember her as a devoted friend and dog mom.
“She was that friend that would go to the end of the world for the people she loved and the animals that she had,” she said.
Tepper doesn’t think the charges are harsh enough for the crime.
“All they cared about was themselves instead of the person who went to the ends of the world for both of them,” she said. “She’s gone, she’s never coming back, and these men are gonna do a couple years if that and get out and live their lives like nothing ever happened?”
