Opinion ID: 746904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Assaults and Car Chase

Text: 2 On February 18, 1994, at about 10:45 p.m., Conni Black and her boyfriend, Steve Kritis, arrived at Willie's Saloon in the Ramada Inn in Florence, Kentucky. 1 Both Black and Kritis had been drinking heavily. While line dancing, Black met Susan Stemler. Around 2:00 a.m., the two went to the women's restroom and discussed problems that each had with their respective boyfriends. During this conversation, Black told Stemler that she wanted to leave Kritis. According to one witness, Christine Stillwell: 3 Steve Kritis then burst into the restroom and slung the door to the restroom hard. He came into the restroom yelling. He stated in part: If you don't get your fucking sister out of here, I'll kill the bitch. He yelled this at Laura Stemler. 4 He grabbed Conni Black on the arm as he screamed at her. He slammed her against a toilet stall. He then yanked her out of the restroom. After he left the restroom, I could still hear him screaming outside of the restroom.... Conni came back into the restroom. He yanked her out physically of the restroom a second time. 5 At this point, I wondered why nobody had called the police. When I went out of the restroom and into the lobby of the Ramada, I observed Kritis pushing Conni around in the parking lot. As I went outside into the parking lot, I observed Kritis still pushing Conni.... 6 Kritis put his forehead against Conni's and put his hands behind his back. For every step Conni took to flee Kritis, Kritis took one forward still pressing his forehead against hers. He then made a fist to hit her. He looked at me and saw that I was watching and released his fist. 7 According to Stemler, after Kritis removed Black from the restroom, Kritis slammed Black against a concrete wall in the hotel lobby; Black's head hit the wall and she briefly passed out. Black asked Stemler to drive her home, and Stemler agreed. As they were leaving, Kritis struck Stemler in the back of the head with a blunt object. Stemler and Black got into Stemler's car and drove away at about 2:15 a.m. Kritis pursued them in his truck. Kritis did not have his headlights on. At one point during the chase, Kritis rear-ended Stemler's car with his truck in an attempt to make her car stop. A witness, Terry Barker, was driving east on U.S. 42 in Florence at the time; he saw that Kritis was chasing the women and that the women were in obvious distress, and decided to follow the vehicles. 8 According to Barker, at one point the truck got ahead of the car and forced it down Woodland Avenue, which ends in a cul-de-sac. Stemler pulled her car into a driveway, and Kritis stopped his car behind her to block her access to the street. Fortunately, the driveway belonged to William Minnick, a retired Florence police officer. His wife, Nancy Minnick, heard a horn blowing at about 2:30 a.m. When she opened her door, she saw Kritis standing in her driveway on the passenger side of the car. Kritis was hitting the car window and yelling. The car backed out around the truck and drove up the street. Kritis jumped in the car and again gave chase; according to Barker, he was driving at about sixty miles per hour on the sidewalk of the residential street. By this point, Mr. Minnick was awake and dressed; he called 911, and then got in his car and followed Kritis and Stemler. Barker also continued to follow them.