Ohio driver Ricky A. Raider arrested for fatal crash that killed college student Lauren Collins

A phone call from a year in prison was used to link an Ohio man to a fatal collision on a Kentucky highway where an 18-year-old college student was killed by the man's tire that fell from his truck.

Ricky A. Raider was indicted earlier this month by a grand jury for the freak crash that killed University of Kentucky student Lauren Collins, according to Boone County. The sheriff's office announced June 21st.

Collins, a rising sophomore majoring in fashion merchandising, was driving south on the highway near the Ohio border when the runaway tire crashed into her car around 12:15 a.m. July 16, 2023.

Raider was heading north when the tire allegedly broke his truck and rolled over the concrete barrier, hitting the windshield of Collins' white 2012 Buick LaCrosse.

First responders extricated Collins from his car before taking him to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.

Collins, the only occupant of her car, died at the hospital.

Six days after the fatal crash, Raider, 37, showed up at the Independence Police Department, admitting “he had lost a tire on the highway over the past weekend, but he didn’t believe his tire had hit anyone.”

A few months later, Sergeant Jeff Nagy of the department's Accident Reconstruction Unit obtained a recording of a telephone recording Raider had with an inmate inside the Bullitt County Detention Center, 170 km southwest of the Independence Police Department.

The call to the jail came the night Collins was killed.

During his conversation, Raider allegedly admitted to driving northbound in his 1993 Ford F-250 when a tire came loose on his truck.

Raider told the caller he saw the tire crash into Collins' car and “knew the collision likely resulted in someone being injured or killed,” the sheriff's office said.

After witnessing the accident, Raider allegedly put the tire back on and fled the scene.

“What he did was he stole lug nuts from other wheels to secure this tire just to get it on the road and off the highway,” said Maj. Philip Ridgell from the Boone County Sheriff's Office to WXIX.

Raider was arrested and charged with one count of leaving the scene of an accident/failure to render aid of death or serious physical injury, a class D felony, and one count of charge of persistent criminal offender, first offense.

He was booked into the Boone County Detention Center and is being held on $40,000 cash bail.

Raider appeared in court Wednesday and requested a public defender to represent him. He is due back in court on July 24, the outlet reported.