A 35-year-old woman is facing felony charges for falsely claiming she crashed into an Amish buggy, killing two children and injuring two others. The crash happened on the morning of September 25, 2023, in Spring Valley, Minnesota, and the woman immediately confessed to the Fillmore County Sheriff that she was responsible for the fatal collision. It turns out she was standing in for her twin sister, who rear-ended the buggy and killed the two Amish kids while driving high on methamphetamine, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Petersen, 35, claimed she did not see an Amish buggy in front of her on County Road 1, leading her to smash into the carriage and kill Wilma and Irma Miller, ages seven and 11, as well as the horse pulling the buggy. The exact speed at which Petersen allegedly struck the buggy is unknown, but County Road 1 has a speed limit of 55 miles per hour and people often drive over the limit, per the Fillmore County Sheriff.
Petersen gave a statement to the deputies on-scene, but they were suspicious of her because witnesses said there was a second woman there who matched the description of the driver who hit the buggy. From the WSJ:
A dead horse and crash debris were still strewn along a country road when a woman in a black jacket approached a sheriff’s deputy and said she had been driving the SUV that struck an Amish buggy.
Sarah Petersen, a 35-year-old worker at a Hy-Vee grocery, told the deputy she hadn’t seen the horse-drawn buggy before hitting it that morning of Sept. 25, killing two Amish children and seriously injuring two others.
Deputies took her statement but grew suspicious. Petersen matched the witness description of the driver as a blond woman, but wasn’t she supposed to be wearing a red-and-black Hy-Vee shirt? And why was a second, similar-looking blond woman spotted at the crash site?
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The day of the crash, the first witness on the scene told investigators he saw a woman on the phone with 911, and later described the driver as a blond woman in a Hy-Vee shirt. A second witness told investigators he saw a woman flailing her arms and yelling into her phone, then saw a second woman arrive and hug the first. He said they looked similar.
Later, when investigators reviewed the dashcam footage of the first deputy to arrive, the video showed two blond women on the roadway; a short time later, it showed one of the women enter a vehicle in a Hy-Vee shirt and emerge in a black tank top.
The SUV that struck the buggy was a 2005 Toyota 4Runner registered to Petersen’s sister, as the Fillmore County Journal reports. According to witnesses, an identical woman was seen with Sarah Petersen shortly after the crash. The second woman was Samantha Petersen, Sarah’s twin sister. The two mysteriously swapped clothes before Sarah gave deputies her statement.
What Sarah and Samantha didn’t know was that one of the deputies left a digital recorder running in the cab of his truck after interviewing Sarah. When Samantha approached the truck, the recorder caught her and Sarah on tape. Sarah allegedly told her sister, “I think that one of the guys is onto me but…there’s no way they would ever know the difference between the two of us.”
The sisters were not taken in for questioning after the crash, but on the following day after investigators reviewed audio and video footage from the scene. Witness testimony also helped build a case against the twins, but even if it had not been available, the twins might have given the plot away themselves with damning evidence that appeared on Samantha’s cell phone. Per the WSJ:
Data retrieved from her cellphone located Samantha at the scene of the crash at 8:23 that morning and showed the original 911 call came from her phone.
Samantha’s internet search history included damning entries, according to the complaint: “What happens if you get in an accident with an Amish buggy and kill two people,” and “how to lock an iphone cops have.”
Samantha told two Hy-Vee managers she was high on meth at the time of the crash, and one speculated Sarah agreed to the switch because Samantha watched Sarah’s children while she was in prison and now Samantha needed her help, according to the complaint.
Both women have criminal records, including prior convictions for DWIs and others that involve controlled substances. According to the twins’ employer, Sarah took the fall for the crash because Samantha had cared for her sister’s kids while Sarah was doing time in jail. The two women have attempted to deceive the authorities by standing in for each other on prior occasions. The ploy was unsuccessful in 2007, when Samantha was convicted of giving a false name. And it didn’t work in 2017, when Sarah was convicted of doing the same.
Why the two women thought the plan would work this time — despite providing ample evidence of the conspiracy — is unclear. Samantha Petersen is now facing 21 criminal charges, including vehicular manslaughter under the influence and fleeing the scene of a crash. Sarah Petersen is facing 16 charges, among them falsely taking responsibility for the deaths of the Miller children. If found guilty, the Petersen twins could spend years behind bars.
