Police have interviewed the unlicensed man they say was driving a car that crashed Tuesday, killing a 4-year-old boy and seriously injuring the boy’s mother, but said it could take weeks before the district attorney’s office decides whether to file criminal charges.
Capt. Don Goulet of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Wednesday that investigators spoke that morning with Michael Minson, 28, and were still seeking more information.
“Mr. Minson is not being as forthcoming about some things as we’d like,” Goulet said.
The accident occurred just before 6 a.m. on Route 11 in Casco. Minson, most recently of Gray, was driving a 1993 Honda Civic registered to his girlfriend, Crystal Petersen, when he lost control and crashed into a utility pole, authorities say. The impact tore the car nearly in half.
Petersen’s 4-year-old son, Cameron Joseph Petersen, was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene. Police are investigating whether the boy’s booster seat was properly attached to the car and whether he was properly strapped into it. Police also haven’t determined whether the adults were wearing seat belts.
Crystal Petersen, who was unconscious at the scene, was taken by ambulance to Bridgton Memorial Hospital and then transferred to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston to undergo surgery for a brain injury Tuesday night. She remained in critical condition Wednesday night, according to a hospital spokesman.
Minson was taken by ambulance to Maine Medical Center in Portland and was treated and released Tuesday.
Goulet said the investigation would take at least two weeks and perhaps longer. He said a toxicology test was conducted on Minson, which is standard in fatal crashes, but the results weren’t available Wednesday.
When deputies arrived at the crash scene, Minson, who has never held a driver’s license, was out of the car and denied that he had been driving. When asked about the child, Minson reacted as if he didn’t know the boy was in the car, authorities have said.
The sheriff’s office investigation will be turned over to the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether to bring charges. If any charges are felonies, which is possible because there was a fatality, the case could be heard by a grand jury.
Minson was charged twice last year in Portland with drug possession. He was one of two people arrested in September 2014 on charges of heroin possession after police searched a home on Cumberland Avenue. He also has a domestic violence conviction from 2010 in Lewiston.
His full criminal history in Maine was not available Wednesday because the state’s criminal database has been down for maintenance this week.
Minson had been dating Crystal Petersen for only a few weeks, her family said. They knew each other from the alternative high school they had attended and recently started living together in a trailer alongside the home of Petersen’s mother in Gray.
Minson was often behind the wheel of Petersen’s car when the couple drove to his workplace between 4:30-4:45 a.m. with Cameron in the car, Petersen’s family said.
Minson lost his right to have a license before he had ever obtained one, although he told Petersen’s family he had one. His ability to apply for a license was suspended in 2007 because he failed to pay a $125 fine for being a minor in possession of tobacco.
Subsequently, he has twice been charged with driving on a suspended license and, because he failed to pay those fines, his ability to have a license was suspended twice more by the Secretary of State’s Office.
Minson, Petersen and her son were headed to Minson’s job at Dunkin’ Donuts in Naples on Tuesday morning and were running late, police said. The car had just passed another vehicle before it went out of control on a relatively straight stretch of Route 11 with a posted speed limit of 50 mph.
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