West County mom charged after burning sons with fireworks inside SUV, causing crash, police say

Feb. 26--TOWN AND COUNTRY --A West County woman lit fireworks in her moving SUV, burning her two teenage sons inside, in an attempt to seek revenge on her married lover, officials said.

Kara A. Koriath, 44, was charged Tuesday with two counts of first-degree assault for the smoke inhalation and burns she inflicted on her sons, Andrew and Matthew Dreste, who were 16 and 13 at the time of the crash in Town and Country on Nov. 20. Police said Koriath lived in the 2700 block of Barrett Station Road in Des Peres.

Koriath was arrested at the time of the crash on suspicion of DWI involving drugs. Police suspected she was impaired after taking prescription medication.

According to court documents, Koriath woke up her sons early that morning and told them that they had to go to the hospital because their grandmother was having a heart attack. While driving there, heading north on I-270 near Clayton Road at about 6 a.m., someone saw her lighting an object inside their GMC Acadia. There were popping noises and the SUV became engulfed in flames. Koriath lost control, went off the side of the road, and hit a guardrail and two signs.

All three were taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

Fire investigators found "numerous packages of fireworks strategically placed and tied together with fuses and pipe cleaners throughout the vehicle," court documents say. Investigators also found consumer-grade mortar shells attached to three headrests and lighter fluid and more fireworks in the glove compartment. The floorboard on the driver's side appeared to be soaked with gasoline and investigators also found a melted lighter.

The grandmother wasn't in the hospital after all, investigators found, and the route was the one Koriath's lover would take to drop his kids off at school.

The relationship had taken a bad turn, investigators say, and the night before Koriath had given him an ultimatum to leave his wife. She had sent him several "goodbye" texts, stating in one, "it will haunt you every day of your life."

Inside Koriath's home investigators found pipe cleaners similar to what they found in the SUV, after-death instructions and a will left out on a desk, suicide letters, a recently-purchased life insurance policy and other documents.

The boys' burns are still being treated, court documents say. Koriath's bail was set at $200,000.

Police had to close two lanes of northbound I-270 near Highway 40 for several hours while they investigated the crash.

EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect town for Koriath's address.

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