Woman arrested for OWI homicide gave fake name to police

A woman who was arrested after allegedly killing a pedestrian with her car on Des Moines' northwest side gave police a fake name, according to Des Moines police.

Oleaf Teoh, 22, of Des Moines, was arrested and charged with vehicular homicide by OWI, vehicular homicide by reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident causing death and driving with a suspended license, according to Des Moines police.

She was also charged with malicious prosecution on Monday after giving police a fake name. Law enforcement was able to determine her real identity through fingerprint examination.

Emergency responders learned of the collision in the 2800 block of Urbandale Avenue, just south of the Veterans Affairs hospital, around 9 p.m. Sunday.

Arriving officers found the body of Matthew Otto, 33, of Des Moines, police said. He was walking westbound when he was hit by a Toyota SUV driven by Teoh that was also heading westbound.

A few minutes later, officers stopped Teoh. She admitted to police officers that she had been in an accident. Officers noticed there was "blood and soft tissue" on the car and there was damage along the front bumper and passenger side of the vehicle, according to a criminal complaint.

The damage and evidence found on the car was consistent with Otto's injuries.

Officer's tested Teoh's breath and she blew a .195 — more than double the legal limit.

She admitted to hitting something in the 2800 block of Urbandale Avenue and not stopping to see what it was.

Before hitting Otto, Teoh said she had been drinking in her apartment and put her two children in the car to go to Hy-Vee on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.

Teoh's 3-day-old infant and 6-year-old child were in the SUV at the time of the crash, according to police. Teoh was also charged with two counts of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person.

Teoh has given false names in the past: during a traffic stop on Aug. 7, 2016, she told police she was a 22-year-old woman named Annie Karr.

When police confronted her and she continued to give a fake name, they were “on the brink” of sending her to jail as “Jane Doe” until she changed her answer 20 minutes later, according to a criminal complaint.

She later told police she lied because she didn’t have an ID and didn’t want to get in trouble.



She is being held on a $525,000 bond in Polk County Jail.