New Hope Woman Gets 4 Years In Drunken Crash That Killed Best Friend

MINNEAPOLIS — A New Hope woman has been sentenced to 48 months in prison after admitting to driving drunk in a May 2021 crash that killed her passenger in northeast Minneapolis.

Delaisha Kenfield, 22, pleaded guilty in February to criminal vehicular homicide with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more.

The crash killed Asia A. Brown, 21, of Brooklyn Park. Brown was Kenfield's best friend, the Star Tribune reported.

Kenfield will serve about two and a half years of her sentence at the women's prison in Shakopee. She will serve the remaining months on supervised release.

On May 29, 2021, just before 3 a.m., Minneapolis police officers responded to the intersection of Lowry Avenue Northeast and Grand Street Northeast for a report of a car crashing into a traffic light pole.

Police found a Volvo had hit the semaphore on the front passenger side. There were two people in the car, according to investigators.

Police identified the driver as Kenfield. The passenger, later identified as Brown, was pronounced dead at the scene.

A witness told police that she saw a Volvo travel at high speed toward the intersection, drive around one or two cars that were stopped at the intersection, lose control, and swerve into the semaphore, according to the criminal complaint.

Kenfield took a blood draw test and had an ethyl alcohol concentration of 0.128 grams per 100 milliliters of blood, investigators said.