Witness says defendant in bike death trial reported she may have hit a person

Photo of Dug Begley

Margaret Mayer called a co-worker the day after a Houston bicyclist was struck and killed, saying she had been in two accidents after an evening of drinking and "hit something and it might have been a person," the co-worker testified Tuesday.

"I didn't want to believe it," Kellie Clark said Tuesday during the second day of Mayer's trial in state district court. "I just honestly thought she might be.. I didn't want to believe it."

Mayer, 35, is accused of failing to stop after her car struck Chelsea Norman, 24, as she cycled along Waugh Drive en route home from her job around 10:20 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2013. Authorities contend Mayer was likely intoxicated after a social gathering. They believe she became disoriented on her way home, struck Norman and drove away.

Norman died four days later of injuries caused by the crash.

Clark, who was a coworker and friend of Mayer, had left the Montrose area bar where they were drinking hours before the incident. The next day, she told jurors, Mayer called her and said she'd been in two accidents.

The first was a minor fender-bender with David Wilkinson, who also testified Tuesday. Wilkinson said he was headed to Mayer's apartment when her truck struck his vehicle they both stopped in a nearby parking lot. Wilkinson needed to get gas, and when Mayer pulled up next to him, she scraped his car.

"It was barely a door ding," Wilkinson said.

The two became separated when Wilkinson went to get gas. He said he could not find her, and was heading to his house when she called and asked him to come to her house. When he arrived, Wilkinson said, Mayer was "visibly distraught."

Along with a damaged windshield, Wilkinson said he noticed a piece of "blue cloth" on the street in front of Mayer's truck. Security camera footage showed that Norman was wearing blue jeans moments before she left her job at a nearby grocery store that night.

Wilkinson acknowledged to defense attorney Guy Womack that he wasn't sure the cloth was denim, and noted there was no blood or any indication on Mayer's truck that a person or animal had been struck.

Mayer told Clark the following day, however, that she had struck an animal or person, Clark testified.

"She believed it was a person," Clark said.

Following intense media and neighborhood attention, Clark and Wilkinson said they pieced together what happened. Wilkinson confronted Mayer, who told him she could not remember what happened, but was troubled.

"I told her she had been upset since that night and now I understand why," Wilkinson said.

If convicted, Mayer faces 20 years in prison because the failure to stop charge involves a death.

The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday.