Repeat Offender Charged in Drunken Hubbard County Hit-and-Run

Mar 18

A woman previously convicted of DUI is now facing charges after she allegedly fled from a crash in Hubbard County, was found sleeping in her vehicle and later failed field sobriety tests.

Deputies were called just before 10:40 a.m. on March 14, 2025, to the intersection of Hubbard County Road 9 and U.S. Highway 71 for the report of a hit-and-run crash.

Arriving deputies first spoke with 56-year-old Scott Lauderbaugh, of Bemidji, who said he had been stopped at the intersection in his 1997 Chevrolet pickup when another driver turning onto County Road 9 struck the front-end of his vehicle.

Lauderbaugh told deputies that the female driver stopped, got out and asked him not to call law enforcement, admitting she didn’t have a valid driver's license or insurance. She then handed him a name and address on a piece of paper before driving away. Lauderbaugh provided deputies with the woman’s license plate number, which matched the information she had given.

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Deputies went to the listed address in rural Laporte—about 23 miles south of Bemidji—and found the suspect’s 2018 Chevrolet Traverse in the driveway. A Minnesota DNR conservation officer who arrived first at the residence told deputies that the driver—identified as 34-year-old Victoria Whitefeather, of Laporte—was asleep inside the vehicle when he got there.

Deputies spoke to Whitefeather, who admitted she had been involved in the crash. She told officers she was coming from a liquor store and was going to meet a friend. Deputies noted a strong odor of alcohol, Whitefeather’s bloodshot eyes and her unsteady balance, court documents said. She agreed to field sobriety tests, but failed.

Whitefeather was placed under arrest for DUI and a search of her vehicle turned up an open bottle of vodka, a bag of marijuana, three pills of anticonvulsant medication Gabapentin and a folded $5 bill inside a plastic bag. At the Hubbard County Jail, she agreed to a breath test and registered a .10 blood alcohol concentration, which is above the legal driving limit.

Whitefeather has now been formally charged with felony first-degree DUI. She has a previous first-degree DUI conviction from 2013, when she was convicted of criminal vehicular homicide with a BAC of more than .08 for causing a crash on Hubbard County Road 36 and killing a motorcyclist. For that incident, she was sentenced to serve 58 months—or just over 4.8 years—at the state women’s prison in Shakopee.

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