Elderly woman dies after head-on crash in St. Charles

An 86-year-old woman died Sunday afternoon after her SUV struck a tree head-on in a Jewel-Osco parking lot in west suburban St. Charles.

About 4:25 p.m., Marinne Hinger was driving a 2005 Honda CR-V in the parking lot of the grocery store in the 600 block of North Kirk Road when she stopped at a stop sign to allow pedestrians to cross, St. Charles police spokeswoman Lisa Blackwell said.

The pedestrians motioned for Hinger to proceed and Hinger’s vehicle accelerated, swerved to the right over a median and then struck a tree head on, Blackwell said. None of the pedestrians was injured.

Hinger, of St. Charles, was found unresponsive in the SUV and was subsequently taken to Delnor Community Hospital in Geneva, where she was pronounced dead, Blackwell said.

She died of multiple injuries from the crash, according to preliminary results of an autopsy conducted Monday by the Kane County Coroner’s office. Toxicology samples have been sent to a forensic laboratory for analysis.