On the evening of January 14, 2024, Scott Kracke, a 49-year-old White / Caucasian male, was fatally shot in what police have described as a road rage incident on Interstate 691 in Meriden, Connecticut. Kracke was driving his pickup truck with his fiancée, Crystal Boganski, in the passenger seat when an altercation with another vehicle began. Boganski later recounted to police that a dark-colored sedan cut in front of them, causing Kracke to brake abruptly, which upset him.
In response, Kracke passed the sedan, pulled in front of it, and "brake checked" the other driver.
Following this exchange, both Kracke and the other driver pulled over to the right side of the highway and exited their vehicles. Witnesses reported seeing the two men face-to-face before the other driver fired a gun at Kracke multiple times at close range. State troopers responded to 911 calls around 8 p.m. and found Kracke on the shoulder of the highway with multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to Hartford Hospital with life-threatening injuries and was later pronounced dead. An autopsy confirmed the cause of death was gunshot wounds to his head, torso, and extremities, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
The suspect, identified as 32-year-old William Lucky Jr., a North Haven resident and a corrections officer, fled the scene with his fiancée and their infant son who were in the car with him. According to his fiancée's statement to the police, Lucky Jr. was crying after the shooting, saying, "I didn't want to do this" and "What the did I just do?". Nearly two hours after the incident, Lucky Jr. went to the Hamden Police Department and reported his involvement in a road rage shooting, claiming he shot the other driver because he was reaching for something.
William Lucky Jr. was arrested on January 23, 2024, and charged with murder. He was held on a $2.5 million bond. His attorney has stated that the case was a matter of self-defense. Lucky Jr. was suspended from his job at the New Haven Correctional Center following the incident and was later terminated.
