Inset: Melissa Howes (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Dollar General in Dix, Ill., where Melissa Howes ran over and killed her husband (Google Maps).
An Illinois woman is heading to prison for “intentionally” running over her husband and killing him at a Dollar General while she was intoxicated, with cops and prosecutors saying she drunkenly shoved him to the ground first before driving over the man’s body with her car.
Melissa Howes, 54, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated DUI charges this week in connection to the September 2024 death of her husband, Jeffrey Howes, 49, at the Dollar General at 101 S. Main St. in the rural village of Dix, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Officials announced her guilty plea in a press release Wednesday posted on Facebook.
“Yesterday in felony court … Melissa Howes pled guilty to First Degree Murder and Aggravated DUI involving a death resulting from this Sheriff’s Office investigation, which concluded Howes intentionally ran over the victim,” police said. “Howes agreed to 20 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections.”
