An Osage County jury deliberated only two hours before finding a Chewelah, Wash., woman guilty of numerous moving-vehicle charges that developed during a high-speed chase after she allegedly struck and killed two workers along U.S. Highway 59 near Pleasant Grove in Douglas County.
Ramona I. Morgan, 48, was found guilty of felony fleeing and attempting to elude a police officer, reckless driving, failure to use turn signal and failure to maintain a single lane of traffic, according to Osage County Attorney Bradley L. Jones. The jury found her not guilty on two counts of speeding.
The jury was empaneled on Monday, before testimony began in Osage County District Court in Lyndon.
Morgan also has been charged in Douglas County with reckless second-degree murder in the deaths of former Emporian Tyrone “Ty” Thomas Korte and Roland Griffith, 24, of El Dorado.
Morgan was charged in Osage County after she fled from a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper who was trying to stop her pickup truck on Sept. 11, 2007, after the two workers had been killed.
The chase ended on U.S. Highway 56 south of Scranton in Osage County after law enforcement officers placed “stop spikes” in the road and flattened the tires of the pickup truck carrying Morgan and her daughter, Sabrina Morgan.
Ramona Morgan will be sentenced at 1 p.m. on May 20. She remains in Osage County Jail on a $100,000 cash or surety bond, Jones said.
Korte graduated from Emporia State University in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in political science and had worked for several years at the former Food-4-Less grocery store in Emporia. He had been an engineering technician with the Kansas Department of Transportation since 2002.
Griffith was a contractor’s employee from El Dorado. Another worker, Amanda Hopper, also received injuries in the accident.