A woman who killed two people, including a 6-year-old boy, while attending a football game in Kansas last month was taking a nap in her parked vehicle before it sped off and will not face criminal charges, officials said Thursday.
The Oct. 17 crash at the Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita killed a 6-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man and injured 10 others when the vehicle crossed a football field around 3:30 p.m.
“Not only can I find no evidence of an intentional crime, I can find affirmative evidence that there was no intentional crime,” Sedgwick County Prosecutor Marc Bennett said at a news conference.
An off-duty police officer and others went to the truck after its crash and found the 34-year-old driver crying, Bennett said. The woman has not been publicly identified.
“What they found was sobbing, alternately described as frantic, hysterical, saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, what have I done,’ words along those lines,” Bennett said.
He said accounts from those present that day said “she was sleepy, it looked like she had just woken up, these were comments from witnesses who came to the door and interacted with her”.
The woman got up around 6 a.m. and drove her husband’s truck from Garden City, about 200 miles away, to the sports complex where her children were playing, officials said. She was not in her regular vehicle because hers had tire air pressure problems, Sullivan said.
Both Bennett and Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan called it a tragedy that shook the community.
Sullivan said the investigation was thorough and fact-based, and “every lead was pursued, every piece of evidence was examined.”
“I also want to be honest with our community: There are some questions we may never be able to answer with complete certainty,” he said.
Among them was whether the van was in a park. The driver told her children she was going to take a nap and reclined the seat, Sullivan said.
One child went to warm up for a game and the second, a 14-year-old, put an umbrella on the windshield so people couldn’t look at the sleeping mother, authorities said.
Somehow, the vehicle then accelerated and headed straight towards the football field. The truck was parked in a stall, with a 7-inch curb in front, with a straight line to a side area, Bennett said.
Investigators were looking into whether the woman could have been asleep and moved in her sleep and put the vehicle in the parking lot into drive. Bennett said it was possible but unlikely because the foot would have to be on the brake to shift and there would be other steps, and shifting is noisy.
The other scenario is that the truck was not put in park and she did not realize it, and then accelerated, he said.
Police ran a simulation with a similar make and model, and a police officer of similar driver proportions, and in that test, the truck — while en route — stopped on the curb but did not drive over it, Bennett said.
“Her child says at one point she turns around, goes from her back to his side,” he said. “And if his foot moves forward and hits that accelerator, that’s all that has to happen for that to be the explanation.”
Bennett made no judgment about what happened, but said criminal recklessness would not apply in this case either, because that standard includes a person knowingly ignoring a substantial risk.
The woman told police she thought she had parked the vehicle, Bennett said.
One of the children said their mother fell asleep and “the next moment the truck was jumping forward,” he said.
“Mom says she wakes up, her kids are screaming, she looks up, she’s disoriented, she’s trying to sit up in a completely relaxed position to sit forward,” Bennett said. “He grabs the steering wheel, looks up, sees sunglasses that weren’t there when she fell asleep, and hits them.”
The driver was cooperative and voluntarily donated blood after the crash, which tested negative for any intoxicants, Sullivan said.
Police also reviewed his medical records, reviewed his social media and had a General Motors engineer and technician examine the vehicle for any mechanical failures after the crash, Sullivan said. No mechanical issues have been noted and the vehicle has not been subject to any recalls, he said.
The woman and her children were at the complex most of the day and arrived in the morning, police said. Referees, coaches and others were interviewed and no one reported conflicts, Bennett said.
“No one had a problem with this woman,” he said.
Cole Adrian, 6, and Nicholas Schafer, 35, both of McPherson, Kansas, were killed. They were not related.
The families of the victims and the injured were contacted by the police and the prosecution to inform them of the findings.
He and Bennett said the accident was a tragedy that shook the entire community.
“There are families, friends, witnesses, first responders and members of this community who will forever carry the weight of this day,” Sullivan said.
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