A woman in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck that sped onto a field during a soccer game in Kansas last month, killing two people, will not face charges after investigators found no evidence it was an intentional crime, officials said Thursday.
The driver, a 34-year-old woman who has not been named, had woken up at 6 a.m. and taken her two children to the Stryker Sports Complex in Wichita, about 200 miles from their home, Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan said at a news conference.
At the field, the woman pulled her pickup truck into a parking space and fully reclined her seat to take a nap, Sullivan said. One of her children left the car to play in a game, while another put a sunshade up to cover the windshield, Sullivan said.
At some point, the pickup truck jumped a seven-inch curb, sped onto the field and crashed, Sullivan said. The collision killed 6-year-old Adrian Cole and 35-year-old Nicholas Schafer, and injured 10 others.
Police said they later interviewed the driver, her children and more than 100 witnesses. The driver was not found to be impaired, and experts later found no mechanical issues with the truck, officials said. Investigators were unable to determine whether the car was actually parked or the driver was unknowingly in another gear.
The driver was “hysterical” after the crash, repeatedly apologizing, and she cooperated with the investigation, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said at the news conference. He said that the driver was not arrested at the scene and that he did not have the evidence to charge her with a crime.
“If I could charge this, I would. … This is simply a reflection of the fact that I am looking at the laws that are available to me in a case like this, and this is where we’re at,” Bennett said.
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