Court records detail Sept. 15 incident that led to woman’s death on Auburndale road

WISCONSIN RAPIDS ? A 22-year-old Marshfield man was charged Thursday with the death of a 40-year-old woman found Sept. 15 on an Auburndale road.

Alec D. Beach faces a charge of second-degree reckless homicide for the death of Nicole Sandoval. Beach made his initial appearance on the charge Thursday. He remains in the Wood County Jail on a $1 million cash bail Wood County Circuit Judge Todd Wolf set Sept. 18.

According to the criminal complaint, at 7:52 a.m. Sept. 15, a caller reported a man and a woman arguing in the 7000 block of McMillan Street in Auburndale. While deputies were on their way to the scene, a caller reported the man was driving a Chevrolet Tahoe and the woman was hanging onto the vehicle's door. A short time later, a caller reported the woman was lying in the road and the man had driven away. A caller later reported the man had returned to the scene.

When a Wood County deputy arrived, he found a Marshfield Fire Department member attending to the woman. The Wood County coroner later pronounced the woman dead, according to the complaint. The deputy determined that the Tahoe the man was driving belonged to Sandoval, the victim.

Two witnesses reported seeing Sandoval and a man arguing at the end of their driveway and looking for something in the ditch, according to the complaint. They said the woman had been driving when the SUV stopped, and she got out of the driver's seat. The witnesses said Sandoval's body language gave the appearance she was angry.

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The witnesses said Sandoval walked up and down their driveway three times, but never came up to the house. Sandoval went back to the SUV, grabbed something out of the driver's side door and popped the hood. The man, later identified as Beach, then walked over and slammed the hood down. The woman opened the hood a second time and the man slammed it closed again, according to the witnesses.

Sandoval then went to the back of the Tahoe and opened the hatch. She and Beach were doing a lot of yelling at each other, but the witnesses couldn't hear what they were saying, according to the complaint. Beach got into the driver's seat and Sandoval began hanging on the outside of the driver's door while it was open. The witnesses then saw Beach drive down the road at what they thought was about 40 mph with Sandoval hanging onto the door as it swung open, according to the complaint.

One of the witnesses said she walked down the driveway to look down the road and saw Sandoval in the road. She said she didn't go any farther because she saw the Tahoe coming back and was afraid, according to the complaint.

The witness told deputies Sandoval had her arms inside the window of the vehicle, and she was partially inside of it. She said that Beach "accelerated super fast" when he took off, according to the complaint.

An autopsy done the next day showed Sandoval had suffered a blow to the head. There was a cut and bleeding from her head and her skull was fractured, according to the complaint.

If convicted, Beach faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

Contact Karen Madden at 715-345-2245 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @KMadden715, Instagram @kmadden715 or Facebook at www.facebook.com/karen.madden.33.

This article originally appeared on Marshfield News-Herald: Man charged in woman’s Sept. 15 death on Auburndale road