Thai woman who fled after killing Michigan student in hit-and-run will return to US

The woman who fled to Thailand after allegedly killing a Michigan State University student in a hit-and-run crash has agreed to return to the US to face charges, police said.

Tubtim “Sue” Howson — who reportedly admitted to striking Benjamin Kable, 22, in the early hours of Jan. 1 — will likely return to Oakland Township by Sunday, Thai officials said at a Wednesday press conference.

Howson claimed she impulsively bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok shortly after she slammed into the college student, who was visiting home for the holidays when he was struck.

A criminal complaint said Kable, who told friends he was walking home because he had been kicked out of an Uber, was “in the roadway” when he was fatally struck.

“I left home for work around 5.30 a.m. to 6 a.m. It is the wintertime and it was very dark. There was usually nobody walking on the road there, except deer,” Howson said at the press conference.

The 57-year-old said she saw a man on the side of the road signaling for her to stop and a parked Uber.

“I thought I was about to be robbed. … I was looking at the car on the roadside. It was dark, and then I hit something in front of me. … At first I thought I hit a deer, but later realized I hit a man,” she said, according to the Bangkok Post.

Assuming she had killed him, Howson booked a ticket to Thailand, where she was born and where her sister lives, and flew out two days later.

“I did not think I would run away, but I was very shocked. I tried to call the police but my hands were shaking. I could not do anything,” Howson said.

Before she left, Howson confided in a friend her plans to leave her family and two children behind. When the pal urged her to turn herself in, she replied, “No cops, no cops,” an FBI filing states.

Police named Howson as a suspect four days later on Jan. 5 after connecting her car to pieces of the vehicle that were left at the crash site. By that time, she had already made it to Thailand.

The FBI tracked Howson down in the western province of Ratchaburi and asked Thai officials for help extraditing her.

“We did not arrest her. After she knew the facts, she showed the intention to accept the punishment in the U.S.,” Thai deputy national police chief Surachate Hakparn said. “This will be a good example for Thai society.”

Howson is a US citizen who has been working and living in Michigan with her family and two children for more than 20 years.

“Two families have lost somebody here,” her husband, who was not identified, said about his wife’s escape.

Howson is being charged with failure to stop at the scene of a crime resulting in serious impairment or death as well as a federal charge for fleeing the country.

With Post Wires