‘Be remembered as fierce’: Teenage boy allegedly killed his on-again, off-again girlfriend by running her over with his truck

A Connecticut teenager has been charged with killing his on-again, off-again girlfriend by running her over with his pickup truck.

Cooper Ouellette, 19, currently stands accused of one count each of manslaughter in the first degree — involving grave risk or death and illegally selling or delivering alcohol to a minor, according to the Connecticut State Police.

“Be remembered as fierce,” Sophie Grace Ringquist, 17, wrote in a journal entry shared in her obituary. “I want to have a beautiful and healthy family. I want to be a good person with pure intentions. I want to be a good wife and mother. I want to be happy.”

“We grieve as a family as those dreams were tragically and suddenly taken,” the girl’s family wrote in response. “We will remember Sophie as a loving, hardworking, joyous, goofy, passionate, fierce, and compassionate young woman with a talent for putting into her writing what we all find so difficult to say aloud.”

The incidents leading up to the girl’s death began on the night of May 20, 2023; minutes into the next morning, she would be gone.

The couple left a party in Terryville, Connecticut, at around 11:18 p.m., according to an affidavit in an arrest warrant application. The defendant had a 10-mile trek ahead of him back to Ringquist’s home in Burlington, during which the 17-year-old “was fatally injured during the ride on Fieldview Drive,” police allege. Ouellette eventually took Ringquist home and her parents quickly took her to the emergency department at nearby Bristol Hospital. Lifesaving measures were tried but were not enough, and the girl died at 12:51 a.m. on May 21, 2023.

The last night of Ringquist’s life began with Ouellette picking her up from home between 6:00 and 6:20 p.m. At around 7:20, they stopped at a package store — the Nutmeg State equivalent of a liquor store — and purchased around $54 worth of IPA-style beer, root beer-flavored schnapps, as well as canned, premixed Arnold Palmer cocktails.

Police said they uncovered telltale evidence of the alcohol purchases from executing a search-and-seizure warrant for the receipts from the package store, evidence collected inside the defendant’s “Yeti cooler in the bed of his Chevrolet truck,” and witness testimony about how the alcohol was delivered and flowed that fatal night.

Just after 9 p.m., a Snapchat selfie suggests the evening had not yet gone bad, the affidavit says. Ringquist took the photo and sent it out — she had no visible injuries. By 9:30 p.m., the couple arrived at a party. But within an hour or so, they were fighting. Ringquist began calling other friends to get her and take her home, police said.

Those pleas for help were ultimately unanswered or were answered far too late. And they allegedly enraged Ouellette. The girl’s sometimes-boyfriend began to angrily characterize her efforts as “calling other guys,” one witness who attended the party told police.

“Cooper was getting really mad,” the witness said in the affidavit.

At one point, the defendant allegedly grabbed Ringquist’s phone out of her hand while she was trying to get a different ride, the witness said. They claimed not to have seen “any other physical violence.”

That same witness and others also described Ouellette kicking Ringquist, police said. Some witnesses said they saw the kicking incident, others said they did not see the violence but later heard about it.

Another witness statement described a telling interaction with Ringquist between 10:30 p.m. and 11:10 p.m.

Ringquist appeared sullen that she and the defendant were at or were going to a second party and she “did not want to go to that party.” By this time, however, the fighting had cooled down, the witness said, and the two “were not yelling or screaming during this argument” but Ringquist “seemed really mad at him.”

The second witness said Ringquist took her aside and told her “that Cooper had just hit her” and “asked me to go to the bathroom.”

“In the bathroom, Sophie told me that Cooper pushed her into his truck,” the second witness went on. “I asked Sophie why she didn’t say or do anything and Sophie said that other people just watched it happen. I felt mad when Sophie told me this because I thought ‘why would you do that’ and felt bad for her. I thought it was not normal. Cooper then told Sophie she better find a different ride home.”

Then, in a parking lot somewhere, just after 11:10 p.m., Ouellette was reclined in the back passenger seat of someone’s Audi when Ringquist came up to hug him, another witness told investigators. Wearing “heavy Chippewa work boots,” the defendant allegedly responded to the teenage girl’s entreaty of affection by kicking her “several times with his right boot” until she was knocked backward onto the ground.

She was crying as she got back up.

At 11:13 p.m., the defendant’s cellular phone “began recording a travel trip,” according to the affidavit. At 11:24 p.m., Ringquist “began recording a selfie video,” the affidavit says. Some 13 seconds later, the Chevy came to a stop, the video shows, then a “dinging alarm sounded,” followed by “commotion in the video.” While law enforcement admits the footage is not clear, they suggest the commotion was “consistent” with Ringquist getting out of the front passenger seat.

The affidavit recounts the next moments:

Cooper then suddenly stomped on the gas pedal, as a hard acceleration of a diesel engine was suddenly heard along with commotion. An audible thud noise was simultaneously heard with Sophie’s voice yelling “ow!” There was more commotion in the video, as it appeared Sophie was knocked to the ground after being struck by Cooper’s truck. The ground was visible in segments of footage and the angle of the video showed as upward toward the rear end of the truck as it drove away from Sophie. Some frames depicted the rear end of Cooper’s Chevrolet and its taillights. It was obvious that Sophie was no longer inside the truck. Sophie gasped for breath and sobbed as the video ended.

At 11:25 p.m., Ringquist sent a friend a text message that auto-corrected to: “I’m saved.” The victim immediately noticed the mistake her phone had made and texted her friend back: “Scared.”

Roughly 13 minutes later, the victim sent two more Snapchat selfies in quick succession. This time, she had a bloody nose, a red mark on her face and was visibly crying, according to the affidavit.

Witnesses would describe to police a history of domestic violence. Ringquist often sent her friends pictures of the violent results that came from Ouellette’s alleged abuse via Snapchat direct messages.

Still, police say, her selfie-documented injuries were not yet fatal. And, at this time, she was back inside the defendant’s truck.

Within a matter of minutes, however, Ringquist somehow became separated from the truck and was subsequently run over.

Ouellette, for his part, claims the girl needed to vomit and jumped out of his truck as it was moving. Police, however, say surveillance footage from the night in question shows the defendant repeatedly driving up and down Ringquist’s street — catching the girl’s speaking voice and offering no evidence that she was vomiting or prepared to vomit.

State investigators are unsure of what exactly happened the second time Sophie was hit by the truck — or why she got out again. But, police allege Ouellette drove “through the known point of impact” and only slowed down “beyond this impact point” before getting out and dragging Ringquist, by the hand, some 12 feet back inside the truck.

At 11:50 p.m., surveillance footage from Ringquist’s residence shows the defendant pulling up next to the garage, according to the affidavit. In the footage, an apparently unhurried Ouellette can be seen lifting Ringquist from the passenger seat “and she appeared lifeless and limp” with a severely bent right arm, and her head rolling around, facing upward. The defendant then summoned Ringquist’s family.

One of Ringquist’s family members was awake and quickly spoke to the defendant. Confusion set in immediately. Within a matter of minutes, Ringquist was on her way to the hospital and Ouellette stayed there.

The family member whose statement is recorded directly into the affidavit remembers hearing “moaning from Sophie that sounded like pain.” They also recalled her “raspy” voice calling out: “Coop.”

An autopsy determined the girl’s death was a homicide caused by blunt force trauma to her torso.

After a lengthy investigation into Ringquist’s death by state law enforcement, Ouellette was charged in early July. He turned himself in last week and posted $50,000 bond. He was arraigned on Monday.

Ringquist’s obituary contains several details of a life gone too soon:

She spent her free time at the gym, hanging out with friends, and during the summer teaching local kids how to swim. Sophie was on the path to graduate high school a semester early and began taking college classes while still attending Lewis Mills High School to get a head start on a future degree in construction management and to learn the business end of the hard work she performed weekly by her father, Scott’s side.

Sophie will be remembered by those she loved in “her truck” going to her “sunset spot” which was her place for meeting up with friends or just for quiet reflection. Sophie lived by her personal motto, “leave the past where it belongs.”

She will be missed for her comforting words, playful teasing, and a smile that brightened any room. Her hugs were genuine and warm, and when she told you she loved you, you felt it.

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