Hit by a possibly uninsured driver, now down a rabbit hole

Hello everyone, not sure where I should go from here. Bit of a long story.

In Minnesota, no fault state. A driver hit my spouse and I's vehicle last month. Spouse was driving, I was not present. No injuries to either party, no airbags, both vehicles drivable but damage to both. Female driver and male passenger in the other vehicle. At fault driver was composed, but male passenger was very reactive. At fault driver told us the vehicle belonged to her boyfriend and presented an insurance card with his information. He was not present. Police were called at the scene and declined to come out due to no injury. Police report was filed by me and accepted with photos of the at fault driver's insurance card and damage to our vehicle. Unfortunately did not get a photo of her license. At fault driver gave my spouse a phone number which was called at the scene and confirmed her phone rang. Here's where it gets messy.

1. We called the agent on the at fault driver's card at American Family and initiated a claim same day
2. We were told by their adjustor per the individual listed on the insurance card they had not seen the at fault driver or that vehicle for over a year and sold it to a relative and that the at fault driver was not authorized to be driving and was not insured through them. The at fault driver also said they were not driving the vehicle, which is false
3. Adjustor said at fault driver was not returning calls and every time her number was dialed it had a busy tone and was also not responding to written letters. Adjustor said if they cannot get cooperation from the original insured, at fault driver or relative who the vehicle was sold to the claim will be denied. At fault driver also ghosted us when we reached out for more information
4. I put the at fault driver's phone number into Google and it linked to her Facebook and a post with an alternate phone number which pointed to…a local escort site on Google. Sex work is work whatever. The way the male in the car reacted made me concerned he was possibly her pimp. To no surprise, the last name she gave to the adjustor was fake
5. I reached out to a private investigator and he was able to provide me the two most recent vehicle registrations which included the registrants and addresses. Those two locations were less than a mile from each other, but in a rougher part of town
6. First location was for the ex boyfriend – no car. Head to the second location – guess what's in the driveway? The car that hit ours
7. Looking at property tax information for the second location one of the owners of the property shares the driver's last name and the other owner is the ex boyfriend. Nothing to do with the individual listed as the current vehicle registrant
8. I snapped a few photos on my phone of the vehicle at the location and I'm going to call the closest precinct tomorrow to see if they will send officers out to see if they can get insurance information for the person the vehicle is actually registered to

This is clearly a case of not wanting to take responsibility. I know the easy answer is probably file through my insurance, but I don't really want to pay a $1k deductible they may not be able to recover or running into the same run around situation. I had also thought about small claims court as an option. However, I am worried about possible retaliation.