Man surrenders to authorities after crash that left two dead

ST. LOUIS -- A man surrendered to St. Louis police in a hospital emergency room after telling a newspaper columnist he was the driver of a speeding car involved in an accident that killed two women on their way to a concert during the weekend.

Claude Keaton, 30, of St. Louis, told Sylvester Brown of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the accident happened as he fled three men who pistol-whipped him in an earlier incident and then began chasing him in another car.

"I don't want people to think that I wanted to hurt anyone," Keaton said in the interview.

A police spokesman said detectives interviewed a suspect at a hospital Monday but would not confirm his name or details because charges had not been filed.

The accident at a midtown St. Louis intersection Saturday night killed Tirzah Berthoff, 70, of University City, and Mary Bryant, 29, a student at Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves. They were riding in a car that was struck by a speeding vehicle that ran a red light. Police said the driver of the other car abandoned his vehicle and fled on foot.

The two women were members of a University City church, the First Presbyterian Church of St. Louis. They were on their way to Powell Symphony Hall for a concert in which another person from the church was singing.

The Rev. Kelly S. Allen, pastor of the church, suffered a broken arm and leg and was in fair condition at a hospital Monday. Church members said that the driver, Bob Elgin, was treated at a hospital and released.

Lawyer J. Justin Meehan said Keaton came to his office Monday afternoon and asked to arrange to surrender. Meehan called police and said he would take Keaton to St. Louis University Hospital for follow-up treatment of his own injuries.

Meehan also called Brown, the columnist, saying he wanted his client's side of the story told. Brown spoke to Keaton in Meehan's office before the three went to the hospital.

"He knows this is a terrible accident and that he caused the deaths of two innocent people," Meehan said. "He is distraught and has been in anguish over this."

In his interview with Brown, Keaton said that three men he did not know followed him from his home to a cousin's apartment, where one of the three struck him in the face with a pistol.

Meehan said Keaton believed the three wanted money because Keaton has a contract as a rap artist.

Keaton said he was speeding to get away from the three. He said he doesn't remember the accident itself.

"I don't know how I got on the ground," he said. "I coulda went through the windshield, I coulda went out the door. All I remember was lying on the curb."

A police spokesman said investigators continued looking into a report from a woman motorist who told officers that a man in a car similar to the one involved in the accident had displayed a gun to her earlier Saturday.