Driver watching TikTok video runs over and kills 81-year-old man, Minnesota cops say

An 81-year-old grandfather was killed when a woman watching a TikTok video struck him while driving home, Minnesota authorities say.

Now, 20-year-old Mariska Kay Nunn is charged with vehicular homicide following the Sept. 3 accident in Detroit Lakes, according to court records.

Nunn, who the Detroit Lakes Police Department said was 19 at the time of the incident, was driving home from her boyfriend’s house when she was involved in the fatal collision, authorities said in a statement of probable cause.

The court records say Nunn did not see the man in the road when she struck him with her Ford Focus. The victim was “propelled onto the hood of the vehicle, striking the windshield and roofline above the windshield,” police said.

The victim, identified by Detroit Lakes-Online and KVRR as Dean Chadbourne, died after being taken to a hospital, according to the court documents.

Nunn told authorities she did not see Chadbourne in the road because she was watching a TikTok video on her phone, police said. Her phone was in her lap when she struck him, police said.

An extraction report of Nunn’s phone showed she was viewing a TikTok video at 12:14 p.m. the day of the collision, police said. The accident was reported to police at 12:15 p.m.

Nunn was charged in January and is due in court for her first appearance Feb. 20, court records show.

Chadbourne, of Detroit Lakes, is a former elementary school teacher and business owner who was known as a “kindhearted, ‘mostly’ patient man,” according to an obituary.

“He would do anything for anyone who needed assistance,” loved ones said in the obituary. “He would never hesitate to go out of his way for others. Anyone who knew him had only good things to say about him. Dean was a well-known and respected man around the area.”

In his later years, Chadbourne’s favorite activities involved his grandson, Kayden.

“He was his pride and joy,” the obituary says. “He attended every sporting and other events he could.”

Detroit Lakes is about a 45-mile drive east from Fargo, North Dakota.

This story was originally published February 3, 2025 at 2:03 PM with the headline "Driver watching TikTok video runs over and kills 81-year-old man, Minnesota cops say."