Woman behind the wheel in soccer field crash that killed 2 won't face charges, Kansas DA says

The 34-year-old Garden City, Kansas, woman behind the wheel of a truck that plowed into a youth soccer game in Wichita in October killing two people will not face criminal charges, according to Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett.

Bennett made the announcement during a news conference Thursday at the Sedgwick County Courthouse. Because the woman has not been charged with a crime, Bennett said her name was not released.

“As bad as this was, it was not a crime,” Bennett. “I cannot charge this driver with a crime. The notion that I could establish and prove behind a reasonable doubt that she did this intentionally, it’s simply not there.”

The deadly incident happened just before 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 17 at the Scheels Stryker Sports Complex when the truck the woman was in drove onto Stryker’s Field 4 during a youth soccer game.

Two people, 6-year-old Cole Adrian and 35-year-old Nicholas Schafer, both of McPherson, were killed. Ten other people, ranging in age from 5 to 65, were injured and hospitalized.

Bennett said a blood test the woman took after the crash showed no evidence of impairment. Authorities also said a General Motors engineer and technician inspected the truck, a 2021 Chevrolet Silverado, and found no mechanical issues with it.

Bennett stopped short of saying it wouldn’t be possible for charges to be filed in the future, but said he didn’t know of anything that could be presented to change his findings.

Timeline of events

The woman left Garden City with her three children at 7 a.m. that morning before arriving at the sports complex at about 10:40 a.m., according to a timeline presented by Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan. She was driving her husband’s truck, police said, because the tires of her usual vehicle had been losing air and wouldn’t be safe to travel to Wichita with.

After two of her three children participated in soccer matches and the four family members briefly left for lunch and to run some errands, they returned to the sports complex at 2:30 p.m. for another one of the children’s upcoming games.

The woman drove the truck into a parking stall facing a soccer field, and one of her children exited the truck to prepare for his upcoming game. The truck remained in the parking space from 2:36 until 3:22 p.m. when the truck jumped a seven-inch curb and drove onto the field and into a crowd of spectators.

“The stall in which she parked was the only stall in the parking lot with an unobstructed path to the field,” a report penned by Bennett and the DA’s office said. Bennett also noted that the woman circled the parking lot several times while looking for a parking spot and did not appear to specifically seek out that stall.

Sullivan said the woman told her kids she was going to take a nap after realizing she had time before her son’s next soccer game. She reclined the driver’s chair back to do so and fell asleep, Sullivan said.

While she was sleeping, one of the woman’s children inside the truck told police that people walking by were looking at her mother as she slept, so she put a two-panel sunscreen in the truck’s windshield. The sunscreen shades were still obstructing the windshield when the truck drove onto the field.

The woman told police that she woke up to her daughters’ screams, the feeling of the truck moving and the sound of people outside the truck screaming, Bennett’s report said. She told police she was “disoriented and tried and failed to depress the brake.” However, video and photo evidence that captured the moving truck’s brake lights showed that she did press the brake about eight seconds after the truck drove onto the field.

“She remembered reaching for the sunscreen but failed to remove it, before finally forcing the column shift into park, which brought the truck to an abrupt halt,” the report said.

Once the truck stopped, witnesses ran to the vehicle and pulled the woman from it. One man noticed the woman’s feet were still on the brake pedal, the report said. The woman made several statements heard by nearby witnesses, including “I’m sorry,” and “I was asleep” while “crying hysterically.”

“Other witnesses described the driver as not looking awake, ‘sleepy’ and ‘unsure,’ and appeared to have just woken as she exited the truck,” the report said.

The Garden City woman told police she thought she put the truck into park, but Bennett said the evidence indicates that it’s more likely the truck was still in drive after they returned to the sports complex and stopped in the parking spot at 2:36 p.m.

Her son who exited the truck to warm up for his soccer game told police that when he left the truck while it was in the parking spot, the back door was still locked. One of her daughters, who was in the truck at the time of the collisions, said she thought she had to unlock the truck when she briefly got out to use the bathroom.

“The Chevrolet truck is equipped with an automatic door lock when in drive,” Bennett’s report read. “While there may be other explanations, that the door remained locked is consistent with the vehicle having remained in drive after coming to a stop in the parking stall.”

Using a truck of the same make and model, police attempted to recreate some of the conditions that could have resulted in the truck being driven onto the field. Detectives confirmed that when left in drive with the truck’s tires against the curb and no pressure on the brake pedal, the truck remained motionless. Only when the gas pedal was pressed did the truck jump the curb and move toward the soccer fields.

Why charges weren’t filed

Bennett said he was unable to find any evidence that the events at Stryker were caused by a mechanical malfunction of the truck or that the woman was under the influence or experienced a medical emergency. He noted that there was no evidence to suggest it was done intentionally, either. Instead, he suggested that the driver inadvertently put her foot onto the gas pedal while she slept after accidentally leaving the truck in drive.

Bennett said that because there is no evidence to support that the truck was intentionally put into drive and the gas pedal was intentionally pressed, or that the woman knew the truck was still in drive when she fell asleep, Kansas law does not support the filing of criminal charges in this case. He also added that there is no negligent murder or negligent manslaughter in the state of Kansas.

“For me to charge a crime, I need two things,” Bennett said. “The act, and the mental state. There is no path forward to a criminal culpability for her. It’s my obligation to hold those accountable who commit crimes that can be defined and be proven.”

Bennett and Sullivan said that ahead of Thursday evening’s press conference, the victims’ families had been informed that no criminal charges would be filed. However, a suit could still be filed in civil court.