Driver tracking ex gets overserved by bar, then fatally hits woman, MO suit says

The children of a 31-year-old woman hit and killed by an SUV while on her way home from work are suing a Missouri bar that attorneys say overserved the driver, according to a recently filed lawsuit.

The suit, filed May 16 in St. Louis County, names the driver, 34-year-old Jessica Przygoda, as a defendant, as well as Young Monies Unlimited Inc, which owns the bar where Przygoda had been drinking, according to the lawsuit.

Przygoda, of Edwardsville, Illinois, is also facing criminal charges, including a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, a criminal complaint read.

McClatchy News reached out to the owner of the bar and an attorney representing Przygoda on May 21 but didn’t immediately hear back.

Przygoda was arrested on March 13, seven months after St. Louis County Police say she fatally struck Julisa Cannon, 31, and drove away from the scene.

According to investigators, she ended up at 1356 Public House Bar, in Ballwin, because she was “tracking” an electronic device belonging to her son “in order to follow her ex-husband.”

She stayed at the pub until her ex left, at which point she left too, police said.

Cannon worked at a Pizza Hut directly next door to the pub and was walking on the side of a road, homebound with food in her hands, when Przygoda struck her, police said.

Cannon was taken to a hospital where she died, but Przygoda wasn’t at the scene because she had kept on driving, according to police. Some time later, police say she stopped along Interstate 44 because she had to — her driver’s side tire became “disabled” — and some Department of Transportation workers spoke with her and noted there was “fresh vehicle damage.”

Friends arrived to help, and Przygoda was able to get home with her SUV, police said.

Using surveillance video evidence, police obtained a warrant and searched Przygoda’s home and saw her vehicle was the same make and model seen fleeing the area where Cannon was hit, according to police.

“The vehicle had strands of hair embedded in the front passenger windshield consistent with hair color of the victim,” police said.

Prior to police arriving at her home, a friend was trying to talk with Przygoda about what happened and, in the middle of the conversation, she grabbed a “large portion” of hair stuck to the SUV and tossed it in a trashcan, a complaint read.

The lawsuit is seeking damages, saying 1356 Public House Bar played a significant role in Cannon’s death by serving too many drinks to Przygoda.

Cannon’s children — who are minors — were robbed of their mother and all the “companionship, comfort” and “guidance” she would have provided them, the suit says.

Przygoda “was clearly and visibly intoxicated,” the suit read, “inebriated to an extent that her physical actions were significantly uncoordinated and had significant physical dysfunction” but pub staff “knowingly continued to serve her” when they should have cut her off.

Ballwin is a roughly 20-mile drive west from downtown St. Louis.

This story was originally published May 22, 2025 at 9:38 AM with the headline "Driver tracking ex gets overserved by bar, then fatally hits woman, MO suit says."