Coroner’s Office identifies woman killed in Santa Rosa crash by suspected DUI driver

The thing that stood out about Kellie Nora Michelle, first and foremost, was her distinctive laugh - a contagious, throaty, joyful sound that let friends and family know she had arrived, even if they couldn’t see her.

It was, they said, the expression of an unfettered spirit living the moment, embracing the love and companionship of others, and putting aside, however briefly, the challenges that attended her much of her adult life.

Michelle, known to most people as Kellie Michelle Coahran, 50, was the “definition of a free spirit,” strong-willed, nonconformist and relentlessly uninterested in submitting to any kind of authority, said her former husband and friend, Ronnie Poindexter.

She loved music and language and had studied English, writing and medieval poetry at Dominican University for a time. She and her ex-husband also had been counselors at a group home for children long ago.

“She was a beautiful soul,” Michelle’s adult daughter, Kailyn Poindexter, said in an email. “She had trust in the world and in people that was unmatched by anyone I’ve met. One of the strongest people I know. She saw the good in people even when it wasn’t warranted.”

But she also knew hardship, and had struggled for years with mental health issues, addiction and homelessness, though she had a place to stay at the time of her death.

Michelle was killed early Monday morning while she slept in her minivan, which was struck by a speeding vehicle driven by a suspected drunken driver.

Police said the 21-?year-old at the wheel of the other car, Angel Ivan Martinez, was traveling an estimated 90 mph when he struck the van where Michelle was sleeping with her dog outside the Hoen Avenue home where she rented a room. Family members said her dog did not get along with another pet inside, and Michelle did not like leaving it alone to sleep in the van.

Her dog also was killed in the crash.

“I feel for the kid,” Ronnie Poindexter said of Martinez. “At the same time, I don’t. He took an innocent life. She was just sitting there, sleeping.”

Coahran had grown up in Sonoma County, attending Rohnert Park schools and graduating in 1987 from Rancho Cotate High School, where she met Poindexter and had a close-knit group of friends who stayed in touch, said longtime friend Diana Goodrow-Hedger, of Bend, Oregon.

She and Poindexter married after high school and had two children during their five-year marriage - Kailyn Poindexter, now a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Andrew Poindexter, who lives in Santa Barbara.

The kids were still in grade school when Michelle tried her hand at college, attending Santa Rosa Junior College and Dominican.

Michelle also operated a vintage-oriented consignment store called Belle Due Volte, or Beautiful Twice Over, on Fourth Street in Santa Rosa for several years and would later continue selling merchandise online.

Former Santa Rosa resident Steve Leone, who lived above the store with his young family, remembered Michelle as “super smart and engaging - a really wonderful person.”

But around the time their children were in junior high school, undiagnosed emotional issues began to emerge, Ronnie Poindexter said. As the years went by, Michelle would struggle increasingly, often self-medicating and becoming increasingly untethered, despite repeated offers of help from many friends, he and others said.

She moved to Washington, D.C., about a decade ago and worked in a wine shop there for about 1½ years, and later traveled to some other states before returning to Sonoma County, according to her social media posts.

But in recent months, it often appeared that her main concern was trying to keep her minivan operational amid pleas for help dealing with breakdowns and an oft-dead battery.

“People wanted to help her,” said Michael Cossins of Santa Rosa, an old friend and best man at her wedding. “Kellie was very popular growing up and as a young adult. Everybody loved her. She was very well-liked, and a lot of people know her and are very upset about this.”

That Michelle was sleeping in her van that night, on a street filled with empty cars in the only vehicle hit by the speeding driver, “it’s crazy,” Ronnie Poindexter said. “It’s very sad.”

“Like I said, the perfect storm,” he said. “She’s not sleeping in her car, and it’s a different story.”

Martinez is being held in the Sonoma County jail on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving causing injury. He is to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon. His bail is $100,000.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.