Chicago woman charged in DUI hit-and-run death of Edgewater cyclist

A Chicago woman faces charges in the death of a bicyclist killed in October in Lincoln Square, according to police.

Kali Rynearson, a 30-year-old North Center resident, is facing a felony count of aggravated DUI leading to death along with six traffic citations — including failing to stop at three stop signs — and a local ordinance violation of driving in a bike lane, police said.

Donald Heggemann, a 59-year-old ceramicist who lived in Edgewater, was riding about 8 p.m. Oct. 23 in a bike lane in the 5100 block of North Damen Avenue when he was hit by a Volvo sedan, according to police.

Witnesses waved down a passing police car and officers were able to pull over the car that had driven away, according to a police report. Rynearson “failed to come to a complete stop” at three stop signs while police attempted to pull her over with lights and sirens.

Once stopped, she consented to a Breathalyzer test. The results showed Rynearson had a 0.20% blood-alcohol content — more than twice the legal limit of 0.08% — according to the police report. Police searched her vehicle and found a half-empty, 750-milliliter plastic bottle of whiskey in her purse.

Footage pulled from a nearby camera showed Rynearson driving in the bike lane before the crash.

Rynearson could face three to 14 years in prison if convicted of the charges. She was released from custody Saturday and is set to appear in court again Tuesday.

Heggemann’s colleague and friend Dubhe Carreno — a ceramics instructor at Northeastern Illinois University, where he was an administrative assistant — said there’s “absolutely” a sense of justice in the charges.

“This person was driving while drinking and killed an innocent person,” Carreno said. “Of course, it doesn’t change anything, but I think people need to be aware that that’s not OK.”

The city has averaged about five cyclist-involved crashes per day, with more than 1,800 occurring since the start of the year — more than 500 of which were hit-and-runs, according to city data. Heggemann is one of at least four cyclists killed in Chicago this year.

Christina Whitehouse, founder of Bike Lane Uprising, said that although she “welcomed” the charges, a life was still lost.

“This doesn’t bring Don back,” Whitehouse said. “Going after the problem after someone is killed is never gonna solve the problem.”

Whitehouse said the stretch of Damen Avenue where Heggemann was killed is notorious for being unsafe for bicyclists. But she also said it was “better than the alternative” — the large number of city streets without bike lanes.

Less than 9% of the city’s bike lanes will have a concrete protective barrier by the end of the year despite efforts by the Chicago Department of Transportation to add more, according to a WBEZ report.

Whitehouse said she hoped to see more infrastructure protecting cyclists as well as better record keeping from the city on crashes. The latter may be coming soon: Ald. Debra Silverstein’s (50th) Fatal Crash Legacy Ordinance, which takes effect Jan. 1, will require the city’s transportation department to conduct detailed post-crash investigations as well as come up with safety recommendations for the area.

“It’s not like people didn’t know this was a problem,” Whitehouse said. “We need people to be driving like lives depend on it.”