Mom Who Drove Truck Onto Soccer Field, Killing 2, Was Apparently Asleep and Won’t Face Charges

A Wichita Police Department vehicle.Credit: Wichita Police Department Facebook

The woman who drove onto a soccer field in Wichita, Kan., in October, killing two people and injuring several others, will not be criminally charged

After an extensive investigation, officials determined that the driver had been sleeping at the time of the incident

“It was pure panic,” one witness recalled

The woman who drove into a Kansas soccer field last month — killing two people and injuring several others — will not be charged with a crime. She is believed to have been asleep at the time of the incident, officials said.

“I can not only find no evidence of an intentional crime, I can find affirmative evidence that there was not an intentional crime,” Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said at a press conference on Thursday, Nov. 12, according to NBC News.

The extensive investigation began after a 34-year-old woman, who has not been publicly identified, drove her Chevrolet pickup from where it was parked in the parking lot onto a field at Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita on Saturday, Oct. 17, the Wichita Police Department previously said.

The mom, who had one child playing soccer at another field and two children in the truck with her, hit several people on the field before coming to a stop.

Two victims — identified as 6-year-old Cole Adrian and 35-year-old Nicholas Schafer — died at the scene, officials said, while 10 people, ranging in ages from 5 to 68, were hospitalized with noncritical injuries. A 61-year-old woman was also transported to an area hospital after suffering medical complications not connected to traumatic injuries.

One witness, Vanessa Trammell, was watching her 13-year-old son’s soccer game nearby and saw the vehicle hit multiple people, CNN reported.

“It was pure panic,” she told the outlet.

Following the tragedy, authorities spent weeks investigating the incident, including interviews with witnesses, an analysis of the truck and reviewing footage taken at the scene, ABC News reported. The driver also submitted to blood tests that determined that she was not under the influence at that time.

After reviewing every possible scenario, Bennett determined there was no evidence to charge the driver, according to the reports.

“This is a civil matter that will be handled under a negligence standard, which is the standard in civil cases,” the district attorney said at the news conference on Thursday, according to ABC News.

Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan told reporters that he’d spoken to the families of the victims and provided the update. He recognized that while the determination can’t stop the tragedy from occurring, they now have a “better understanding of what happened,” according to ABC News.

That Saturday morning, the driver left her home in Garden City around 7 a.m. local time, and drove more than 200 miles to Wichita in her husband’s truck to go to her two younger children’s soccer games, who are both 11 years old, according to a final report released by Bennett’s office. She told investigators that she decided to drive the truck rather than her vehicle because she was worried about her tires losing air and she believed the truck would be safer.

She made the long journey with the two 11-year-olds and her 14-year-old daughter, who rode in the front seat, reaching the complex around 10:40 a.m. After the two younger children played in their respective games, the family went to get food and returned to the soccer fields around 2:30 p.m., in time for the next game. After searching for a parking spot, the woman parked the truck in an open space she found, which was the only one without a fence obstructing a direct path to the soccer field.

The driver told investigators that she believed she put the truck in park. She told her kids she was going to take a nap and reclined the driver’s seat. While the younger boy got out of the truck, his 11-year-old sister fell asleep in the backseat, and the 14-year-old girl put a sunshade in the windshield of the truck to prevent people from looking at her sleeping parent. Video footage showed the truck in a stationary position for more than 45 minutes, officials wrote.

By 3:22 p.m., video shared by Stryker showed the truck moving over the curb and onto the soccer field, as the sunshade panels remained in place. Terror ensued for the victims on the field, with one witness telling investigators: “everything [was] a blur.”

The driver told officials that she woke up to her daughters’ screams, yelling outside, and the feeling of the truck moving. She tried but failed to press the brake and could also not move the panels out of the way. Eventually, the driver forced the column shift into park, which brought the truck to a halt, according to the report.

When witnesses reached the driver, they remembered her saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Witnesses recalled the woman repeatedly apologizing and saying she had been asleep and “should never have come,” while “crying hysterically.” Witnesses confirmed that the woman seemed to have just woken up as she got out of the truck.

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Officials reviewed six possible scenarios that could have led to the truck striking victims on the soccer field, according to the report. They determined that the most likely was that the woman went to sleep thinking she’d put the truck in park, and later “inadvertently” put her foot on the gas pedal while she slept.

While the woman won’t face criminal charges, the community continues to grieve.

“There are families, friends, witnesses, first responders and members of this community who will forever carry the weight of that day,” Sullivan said, according to NBC News.

Source: Crime