What happened
A 57-year-old woman was struck and killed just before 6:30 Wednesday morning while crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway near Washington Avenue in Des Moines, and the driver who hit her did not stop.
Des Moines police were called to the area of MLK Jr. Parkway and Washington Avenue shortly before 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 16, on a report that a woman had been struck by a vehicle and that the vehicle had left. Medics began lifesaving care at the scene and took her to MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center, where she died. On Thursday, police identified her as Anna Ayoul, 57. (WHO 13; WHO 13)
Investigators had very little to work with at first. A nearby home security camera caught a blurry image of the vehicle and its taillights, enough to narrow it to a smaller SUV. Police then checked a license plate reader camera one block from the crash; a matching SUV had passed it. "That was the first one we checked, and it was actually the car," Sgt. Paul Parizek told reporters. Police identified the vehicle as a 2018 Nissan Rogue and, just after 10:30 a.m. — roughly four hours after the crash — located it and its driver at a residence in the 1700 block of University Avenue. (KCRG; WHO Radio)
Michelle Evette Williams, 57, was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident causing death, a Class D felony, and driving with no insurance, a simple misdemeanor. Those charges are allegations; she is presumed innocent, and police say the investigation is ongoing. Ms. Ayoul's death is the 14th traffic death in Des Moines this year.
What has not been reported matters too. No agency has said whether Ms. Ayoul was in a marked crosswalk, whether a signal was involved, or what the vehicle was doing in the moments before it struck her. I will not fill those gaps in. They are the questions an investigation answers, and nobody should be reaching conclusions about them from a news release.
Our thoughts are with her family
Anna Ayoul was crossing a street in her own city on a Wednesday morning, at an hour when people are walking to work, to a bus, to a shift that starts before the sun is fully up. That is one of the most ordinary things a person does. Her family learned she was gone, and then learned that whoever hit her had driven away and left her there. There is a particular cruelty in that second piece of news that families describe for years afterward — the sense that the person who hurt someone you love did not even stay.
I am sorry for her family and for everyone who knew her. I also want to acknowledge whoever stopped, called 911, or stayed with her until the medics arrived. That mattered, and it is not forgotten.
Safety context
Pedestrian deaths are not rare events that happen somewhere else. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Traffic Safety Facts: Pedestrians, 2023 Data, 7,314 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in the United States in 2023 and an estimated 68,244 more were injured. That works out to one pedestrian killed roughly every 72 minutes. And 84 percent of those deaths happened in urban areas — on city streets and parkways like the one Ms. Ayoul was crossing, not on remote rural highways.
A few things are worth repeating for everyone who drives in Des Moines, particularly on multi-lane arterials like MLK Jr. Parkway in the early morning:
- Expect people on foot at commute hours. Early morning is when bus riders, shift workers and walkers are crossing. Scan the curbs and medians, not just the car ahead.
- Slow down where people cross. Speed decides both whether a driver can stop in time and how badly a person is hurt if they cannot.
- If you hit something and are not sure what it was, stop. Iowa law requires it, and it is the difference between a tragedy and a felony.
On that last point, Iowa is explicit. Under Iowa Code § 321.261, a driver who knows or has reason to believe their vehicle was involved in a crash that injured or killed someone must stop immediately at the scene or as close as possible, and return to and remain at the scene. The law draws a line between two offenses: failing to stop after a crash resulting in death is a Class D felony under subsection 4(a); a driver who knows or has reason to believe their vehicle caused the death and fails to stop faces a Class C felony under subsection 4(b). Ms. Williams has been charged under the first, the Class D version — which does not require any allegation that the driver caused the crash. That distinction is important, and this page is careful not to blur it.
The rights of families after a death like this
When a pedestrian is killed and the driver leaves, families are often left with a painful and mistaken assumption: that because the driver was caught and charged, the criminal case will take care of things. It will not. A criminal prosecution decides whether the state can punish someone. It does not pay for a funeral, replace lost income, or compensate a family for the loss of a mother, a sister, or a partner. Those are civil claims, and they belong to the family — through Ms. Ayoul's estate, and to certain close family members in their own right for the loss of her companionship and society.
In crashes like this one, the first question is often insurance — and here the reporting points straight at it. Ms. Williams is charged with driving without insurance. If that allegation holds, there may be no liability policy behind the vehicle at all. That is exactly the situation Iowa's uninsured-motorist law was written for. Under Iowa Code § 516A.1, every auto liability policy issued for a vehicle registered or principally garaged in Iowa must include coverage for people who are legally entitled to recover damages from the driver of an uninsured or hit-and-run vehicle — including for death — and the hit-and-run coverage specifically extends to physical contact between that vehicle and the insured person herself. A named insured can reject that coverage, but only in writing, on a separate sheet. What that means in plain terms: a person who is killed while walking may be covered by her own auto policy, and sometimes by a policy belonging to someone in her household, even though she was not in a car. Families very often do not know to look.
Leaving the scene changes the argument about fault. How the collision itself happened has not been reported, and a family's civil case is still built on evidence: the crash reconstruction, the security video, the damage to the vehicle, any other cameras along the parkway. But in my experience, when a driver strikes a pedestrian and drives away, the argument that the pedestrian was to blame becomes much harder to make. A driver who stays can tell investigators what they saw and when. A driver who leaves gives up that chance, and a jury is entitled to wonder why. I have handled a number of cases in which a car struck and killed someone on foot, including cases where the driver fled and cases where the person killed was not in a crosswalk. We take those cases, and we have won them.
Iowa's comparative fault rule will shape the case. Under Iowa Code § 668.3, a claimant's own fault does not bar recovery unless it is greater than the combined fault of the defendants; below that line, damages are reduced in proportion. The same rule applies to family members' claims for loss of companionship and society, measured by the fault of the person who died. Insurers routinely argue that a pedestrian bears part of the blame — for where she crossed, what she wore, whether she was looking. Under Iowa's rule, crossing outside a crosswalk does not end a pedestrian's case; it is one factor in how fault is divided, not an automatic bar. Those arguments have to be met with evidence, not conceded.
And the clock is running. Under Iowa Code § 614.1(2), actions founded on injuries to the person must generally be brought within two years. Evidence disappears much faster than that — private security footage is overwritten, license plate reader data is purged on a schedule, and memories fade.
If the reporting that Ms. Ayoul was crossing the parkway and was struck by a vehicle whose driver did not stop is accurate, her family may have claims against the driver and, depending on the facts, against the vehicle's owner if that is someone else, as well as uninsured-motorist claims under their own policies. Every one of those possibilities depends on facts that have not yet been made public.
Learn more about your rights: if this touches your family, it may help to read about what people struck while walking, and their families, are entitled to, about how a claim against a driver and their insurance actually works after a crash, about how a wrongful death claim works when someone is taken by another person's carelessness, and about how I represent injured people and grieving families in the Des Moines area.
How I help families in crisis
When someone is killed in a hit-and-run, the family is thrown into two worlds at once: grief, and a set of institutions — police, prosecutors, insurers — that each have their own timelines and their own interests. None of those institutions work for the family. The prosecutor represents the state. The insurance companies, including the family's own, are looking at a claim.
My job is to take that weight off a family's shoulders and take up the shield for them — to stand between a grieving family and the adjusters, the paperwork and the deadlines, and to advocate for the person they lost. In a case like this, that starts with finding every policy that might respond, including uninsured-motorist coverage people rarely realize they have. It means sending preservation requests quickly so that video, license plate reader data and vehicle evidence are not lost to a routine retention schedule. It means following the criminal case closely, because what comes out there often matters to the civil claim, while making sure the family's own rights are not left waiting on it. And it means guiding a family through all of it at a pace they can manage.
Over my career I have recovered more than $23 million for injured people and grieving families, earned countless five-star reviews from clients and endorsements from fellow attorneys, and been honored as part of a Best of Omaha personal injury team in 2025 and 2026.
If you are part of Anna Ayoul's family, or you have lost someone in a crash like this anywhere in Iowa or Nebraska, you can call me at (402) 378-9208 or send a message when you are ready. Talking with me costs you nothing and commits you to nothing, and if we go forward together, I am paid only if I recover something for you.
Frequently asked questions
- What happened at MLK Jr. Parkway and Washington Avenue in Des Moines on September 16, 2026?
- Just before 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, Anna Ayoul, 57, was struck by a vehicle while crossing Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway near Washington Avenue in Des Moines. The driver did not stop. She was taken to MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center, where she died. Police used a home security camera and a license plate reader to identify a 2018 Nissan Rogue and arrested Michelle Evette Williams, 57, about four hours later on alleged charges of leaving the scene of an accident causing death and driving with no insurance.
- Who pays when a pedestrian is killed by an uninsured hit-and-run driver in Iowa?
- Under Iowa Code § 516A.1, every auto liability policy issued for a vehicle registered or principally garaged in Iowa must include uninsured and hit-and-run motorist coverage unless the named insured rejected it in writing on a separate sheet. That coverage extends to physical contact between a hit-and-run vehicle and the insured person, so a pedestrian may be covered by her own auto policy, and sometimes by a household policy, even though she was not in a car.
- Does crossing outside a crosswalk bar a pedestrian's claim in Iowa?
- Not automatically. Under Iowa Code § 668.3, a claimant's own fault bars recovery only if it is greater than the combined fault of the defendants; below that line, damages are reduced in proportion. Crossing outside a crosswalk is one factor in how fault is divided. And when a driver strikes a pedestrian and leaves, the argument that the pedestrian was to blame becomes much harder to make.
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Frank Younes
Every page on this site is written by Frank Younes, a Nebraska trial attorney with a published record of verdicts and settlements, selection to the National Trial Lawyers Top 100, and a practice that covers every county in Nebraska and Iowa. No case is handed to an associate — the lawyer you read here is the lawyer who works your case.
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