AUBURN — A Harrison man was indicted on a felony charge for failing to stop in an accident in which a 21-year-old Paris woman was struck and killed on Route 117 in Turner.

Kevin Scribner, 27, was indicted by an Androscoggin County grand jury Tuesday.

The Class C charge of leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily injury or death carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

Scribner has been free on $2,500 cash bail since his initial court appearance in November.

Brittany Stanhope was killed after being struck by a vehicle on Route 117 in Turner on Sept. 19. She had pulled her car onto the shoulder of the road after noticing some mechanical problem, police said. She was standing on the road after having opened a rear car door to get her purse when she was struck. She was thrown a distance from her car and died at the scene, police said.

The driver whose vehicle struck her did not stop at the scene, according to a witness, police said.

According to a police report, Scribner was visiting a friend in Turner and told his parents when he arrived home at 9:35 p.m. — about 45 minutes after the crash — that he had been blinded by oncoming headlights during the trip home and thought he hit a deer.

After Scribner and his parents inspected the damage to his truck, his father, Thomas, asked whether he might have hit a “sign or something” because there didn’t appear to be any hair in the damaged area. Scribner told his father he didn’t know what he hit, police said.

After watching the 11 p.m. news that night and seeing nothing about an accident at that location, the family went to bed, police said.

He first told police that it was after reading media reports of the fatal accident the next morning that Scribner decided to contact police and tell them that he drove past Stanhope’s car but thought he hit a deer.

Police wrote in an affidavit filed in support of Scribner’s arrest warrant that Scribner’s parents were the ones who told their son to call police after seeing media reports about the fatal accident “because it was the right thing to do.”

Scribner told police that he’d been shopping online for replacement parts for the roughly $4,000 worth of repairs his truck would need, despite the fact that he had full vehicle insurance coverage.

Scribner later admitted texting on his cellphone prior to the crash while driving on Route 117. When police asked to see the texts, Scribner told them he had erased his messages that morning because he was having problems with his phone.

He also told police that after crossing a small bridge just before the crash that he saw what he thought was a lifted trunk on a car that was “kind of in his lane, which blinded him.”

Police matched Stanhope’s DNA profile to blood found along the side of Scribner’s black 2012 Ford F-250 pickup truck.

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