Alexis Cohen, Former American Idol Contestant, Killed

It started with a fender-bender in a nightclub parking lot and ended — police say — with the death of a former "American Idol" contestant in the resort community of Seaside Heights Saturday morning. Authorities outlined that chain of events at a news conference Monday on the alleged, alcohol-related, hit-and-run fatality of a Alexis E. Cohen, a 25-year-old woman from Allentown, Pa., who had twice hoped to compete on the nationally televised talent show , Asbury Park Press reports.

Photo: Alexis Cohen, Former American Idol Contestant, Killed

Alexis Cohen, Former American Idol Contestant, Killed

However, according to Ocean County Prosecutor Marlene Lynch Ford, Bark hit and killed 25-year-old Alexis Cohen while fleeing police in Seaside Heights. At around 3:49 a.m., Bark – with a 2004 drunk driving conviction – had a minor collision with a parked car in a lot next to a bar called Hemingway's, Lynch Ford says. A Seaside Heights officer on a bike ordered him to stop, but he took off, she says, People Magazine reports.

Prosecutors plan to upgrade charges against a Toms River man arrested after a weekend accident at the Shore that killed a former American Idol contestant , Philadelphia Inquirer reports.