MUNCIE, Indiana— Police in Delaware County want to charge a 14-year-old boy as an adult for causing a crash that killed a woman from Muncie.
The Muncie teen was “speeding and swerving in and out of traffic” on Madison Street on the morning of Oct. 8 when he ran a red light at 18th Street and hit a car driven by Meisa H. Cope, 52. This was according to court papers filed last week.
The crash seriously hurt Cope, who was from Muncie. He died two days later at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital.
Three people in the car driven by the 14-year-old boy were hurt in the crash, two of them were children. An affidavit that was filed with the request to waive the 14-year-old boy into adult court says that two of the victims were seriously hurt and could die.
The statement said the teen was driving a woman of 36 years in Muncie’s car.
Police were told that the girl had that boy, his brother, and his father “staying with her a few weeks” before she told the boy “about the house being a mess” on Oct. 8.
She said the youth then struck her, hitting her several times, choking her, and “stomping on her numerous times” before stealing her car, which had her phone in it.
The woman said that during the attack, she tried to “claw at” the child with her nails.
An ambulance took her to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. It says that doctors there found she had “a punctured lung, several broken ribs, fractured sternum, facial trauma, as well as scratches and marks around (her) neck.”
A request for the 14-year-old boy to stay in the Delaware County Juvenile Detention Center said he was “a danger to himself and the community.”
Deputy Prosecutor Diane Frye asked that the youth be sent to adult court instead of juvenile court because he could be charged with robbery resulting in bodily injury, aggravated battery, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, reckless driving, and three counts of criminal recklessness resulting in catastrophic injury.
The two worst charges are Level 3 felonies, which mean the person could go to jail for up to 16 years.
A hearing about the request to let the child go to adult court will be held on November 12 in Delaware County’s juvenile court by Magistrate Amanda Yonally.
Source: Prosecutors want 14-year-old Muncie boy charged as adult in crash, attack
