STEUBEN COUNTY, Ind. (WANE) — Sunday would be the first Christmas that Ron and Chantel Bennett will spend with out considered one of their 5 youngsters.
Wayden Bennett, their 13-year-old son, died in early October after somebody in a Jeep Liberty hit him and his good friend alongside a stretch of 275 N close to Lake James in Angola. The motive force left the scene and the boys behind – Wayden died days later at an area hospital.
Wayden was strolling along with his good friend Ryly Cummings, 12, who was additionally injured within the crash.
Days later, police arrested and charged Hope Richmond, 45, close to Fremont.
Court docket data revealed that Richmond tried to scrub up blood and knock out dents left on her Jeep Liberty in an effort to conceal her involvement.
She’s accused of initially mendacity to police concerning the injury to the automobile, in keeping with Steuben Superior Court docket paperwork. She finally modified her tone and instructed investigators in courtroom paperwork:
“It was darkish, and I didn’t see them.”
Richmond faces three felony prices.
One is a Stage 4 felony depend of leaving the scene of an accident inflicting loss of life, the opposite two are Stage 6 felonies – one depend of leaving the scene of an accident inflicting severe bodily damage and one depend of obstruction of justice.
She might face anyplace between 2 to 17 years in jail.
Ron and Chantel Bennett instructed WANE 15 that they wouldn’t take their eyes off of Richmond in her preliminary courtroom look to see if she’d take a look at them.
The Bennetts stated she by no means did. Richmond bonded out and received’t return to courtroom till her trial in August of 2023, in keeping with the Bennetts. That’s 10 months from when Richmond was arrested and charged.
The concept of Richmond being out of jail till the trial is one thing that doesn’t sit effectively with the Bennetts.
“We’re sitting right here attempting to choose up the items to our household. We’re going via a Christmas with out our son. I don’t suppose that it’s truthful,” Chantel stated. “Each time we exit, I’ve actually seen people who look just like her, and he’s [Ron] needed to maintain me again as a result of I’ve nearly gone straight as much as this particular person pondering that it was her. It wasn’t her, however I really feel like I’m always trying and awaiting her.”
A change.org petition with greater than 9,000 signatures on the time of this put up calls into query Richmond’s $16,000 bond that’s allowed her to stroll free till her trial.
Ron stated they tried to ask the choose to revoke Richmond’s bond, however they had been instructed it couldn’t occur.
“Generally within the justice system and in society right here in Indiana, it seems like should you don’t have cash you’re handled in another way,” Ron stated. “Since we’re a household that isn’t well-known, we don’t have a excessive identify, we’re not a public determine, we’re not a consultant for the state of Indiana, so it’s simply we’re simply ‘Joe Schmo’ that they don’t know and it doesn’t matter.”
It’s laborious for them to grasp why somebody who admitted to police that they hit their son, which resulted in his premature loss of life, is allowed to stroll fairly than ready in a jail cell till trial.
“If it was simply an accident, we might nonetheless be devastated, however she left our son on the facet of the highway like roadkill. She then tried to cover it,” Chantel stated whereas combating again tears.
WANE 15 talked to former Marion County Deputy Prosecutor and the previous Chief Deputy Prosecutor of Allen County Mike Loomis on Thursday.
Loomis offered what a courtroom seems at relating to bail.
“There’s a proper to bail, nevertheless it’s not an absolute proper. The appropriate evolves from the Eighth Modification, which says that extreme bail shall not be required,” Loomis defined. “The courtroom sometimes considers two issues in setting bail. One, whether or not the quantity within reason required to guarantee the defendant’s look in courtroom, and two, can they guarantee the bodily security of any particular person or the group at massive.”
Loomis added that the courtroom often takes an individual’s prior, or lack thereof, prison historical past when setting bail.
“So, what it comes right down to is that bail is merely a tool to insure that the defendant will seem in courtroom in all procedures, and I believe all of us could be delicate to a state of affairs like this one the place the household is grieving the lack of a member of the family, however the level is that bail isn’t a sentencing function,” he stated.
The Bennetts are experiencing how the system works, and so they don’t see it as simply.
“One thing has bought to vary, and clearly it’s not only for Wayden. Clearly, the entire system is tousled,” Chantel stated.
Chantel not too long ago wrote a prolonged put up on her private Fb web page, which incorporates the tough-to-read, graphic particulars about what occurred to her son, and pictures of her household grieving, which additionally they shared with WANE 15.
Within the put up, she tagged accounts for the mayor of Angola and all the main politicians within the state of Indiana beginning with Governor Eric Holcomb.
They merely need to discover anybody who will again them of their combat.
“I really feel like in the event that they needed to see these photos, in the event that they must see what we needed to see, then perhaps it would tug at their hearts,” Chantel stated of the pictures she referred to as “heartbreaking.”
She’s additionally engaged on written letters that will probably be accompanied by the photographs of Wayden to ship to lawmakers.
“We don’t need to see someone undergo the identical factor we’re going via,” Ron stated.
The couple’s objective is to ensure different households don’t expertise the ache and grief they’re feeling. They know what it’s prefer to lose a toddler, a ache they by no means thought they’d must take care of.
“It’s unfathomable,” Ron said. “I can’t even let you know, describe it in phrases that you’d have the ability to perceive.”
Additionally they hope that at some point there could also be one thing referred to as ‘Wayden’s Regulation’ that brings about harsher punishment for hit-and-runs.
“I really feel prefer it’s the rationale that I’m respiratory proper now as a result of with all of these items happening, it’s very laborious to discover a motive to stay. I do know I’ve 4 different children, and they need to be a motive to stay, however the ache — it will get insufferable generally, and I’ve gotten very, very low and darkish” Chantel stated. “I don’t know there was only a hearth in my stomach that I wanted to rise up off the bed and I wanted to combat.”
“We simply hope that on the finish of this we find yourself seeing justice for Wayden. That’s our finish objective,” Ron added.
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