A Kansas mother faces no criminal charges after her truck killed a man and a boy on a soccer field, with the DA calling it no crime.
Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett announced he will not file criminal charges against the unidentified woman whose truck entered a youth soccer field in Wichita and struck spectators, killing two people and injuring others.
Daily Caller reported that Bennett released a 28-page report after the investigation and said the facts did not support a criminal case under the standard he applied.
Nicholas Schafer, 35, and Cole Adrian, 6, died of blunt force trauma consistent with being struck by a vehicle. Eleven other people were sent to the hospital.
The crash happened Oct. 17 at the Stryker Sports Complex. The truck entered the field at 3:22 p.m. and hit people sitting between fields 4A and 4B before turning slightly, traveling west, and stopping abruptly.
The woman, a mother of three, arrived at the complex at 10:40 a.m. that day to watch two soccer games for her younger children. She left after those games, stopped at two fast-food restaurants and a local business, then returned for another game.
She was driving her husband’s 2021 Chevrolet 1500 Silverado Trail Boss because she worried her usual vehicle was losing air in the tires. She pulled into a parking stall, reclined the seat, and lay down to nap while she waited.
Her 14-year-old daughter, riding in the front passenger seat, put a sunshade in the windshield because she thought people walking by were staring at her sleeping mother. Surveillance showed the woman had operated the truck safely and behaved normally earlier, the report said.
She later told detectives she thought she had put the truck in park. Blood tests showed she was not under the influence.
Breitbart reported she is 34, from Garden City, and had driven about 200 miles before the stop in Wichita. Investigators found no mechanical defects in the truck and no evidence of intent.
When the vehicle moved, she woke to her daughter screaming. A male witness pulled her from the truck. She apologized repeatedly.
Bennett held a press conference and framed the decision in plain legal terms. He said he could not meet the proof required for a charge built on conscious risk.
Bennett stated:
"I cannot prove she consciously disregarded a tremendous risk to people on that field,"
KAKE News posted his further line that “This is not a crime.” Bennett also said “not everybody may be at peace” with the choice and asked, “If I could charge somebody, why wouldn’t I?”
On intoxication and intent, he was direct.
Bennett said:
"I have zero evidence that this was in any way impacted by intoxication, driving under the influence,"
He added:
"I cannot only find no evidence of an intentional crime, I can find affirmative evidence that there was not an intentional crime,"
Wichita police and his office found no drugs, no alcohol, no deliberate act, and no truck defect that turned the case into a crime under the charging standard he used. The runaway path across a crowded youth complex still left a 35-year-old man and a 6-year-old boy dead, and a field full of families dealing with the aftermath.
Schafer and Adrian died from injuries matching a vehicle strike. The injured ranged across ages, including children and adults on a Saturday sports complex that should have been ordinary.
Two of the driver’s three children were inside the truck when it moved. The scene itself was captured on complex video: the Silverado leaving the stall area, crossing onto the field, hitting people between the marked fields, then stopping.
Bennett’s office put the investigation into a 28-page public report rather than a charging document. That is the official record families and the public now have: a nap, a truck that was not secured as the driver believed, a sudden roll into spectators, clean toxicology, and a prosecutor who says the criminal law does not reach what happened.
Civil courts may still be open. Criminal court, on Bennett’s word, is not.
When a truck kills a child and a father on a soccer sideline, people expect accountability that matches the harm. A clean toxicology screen and a failed park gear do not erase the dead. They do, under this DA’s reading, close the criminal file.
