A man who caused a pileup crash in downtown Minneapolis that killed a 26-year-old woman and injured 10 others last year has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Talon Walker, 30, pleaded guilty in August to one count of criminal vehicular homicide and two counts of criminal vehicular operation. He was charged with 12 other counts, but they were dropped as part of a plea agreement. A judge sentenced him to 120 months on Thursday.
“Mr. Walker, I do hope as many of the victim impact statements said … You make good use of your time at the DOC. Address any of those chemical dependency issues,” Judge Maximilia Utley said during the hearing.
Walker was driving around 100 mph at the time of the crash, which happened on the exit ramp from Interstate 94 east near Lyndale Avenue. The criminal complaint said there was an open, “mostly empty” bottle of Fireball whisky in the car Walker was driving.
Court records show Walker had a revoked license and previous convictions for careless driving and driving with an open bottle and a controlled substance.
“For what it’s worth, I’d like to apologize from the bottom of my heart to everyone affected by me and this entire process,” Walker said during his sentencing.
The crash killed Natalie Gubbay, an employee at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, who was driving one of the vehicles Walker hit. At least two others were severely injured. Victims ranged in age from 2 to 62 years old.
Gubbay had graduated from Colorado College in 2020, where she majored in mathematical economics and earned a Fulbright research award studying worker cooperatives in Argentina.
“Very complicated. This was a tough day I think for everybody. A lot of emotions,” Gubbay’s friend Anita Fraser said. “It was really hard to hear Natalie’s mom talk about what it feels like to not have her around.”
contributed to this report.