A California driver was charged with fatally mowing down a man whom she accused of trying to run over a cat, authorities said Wednesday.
Hannah Star Esser, 20, was charged with murder and is being held on $1 million bail in the Sept. 25 encounter in Cypress, a Southern California suburb southeast of Los Angeles, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
Prosecutors say Esser confronted Luis Anthony Victor, 43, because she believed he was trying to hit a cat with his car.Esser emerged from her vehicle and recorded a profanity-laced tirade against Victor, who also got out of his car, the statement said. Esser drove off briefly before she made a U-turn, the statement said. It alleged that she accelerated directly into Victor, launching him onto the hood and the windshield and flipping him over several times.In a statement, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer described the killing as a"random act of violence targeting a stranger."She is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 13 and could face 25 years to life in prison.