Kansas prosecutor won't charge woman whose truck hit soccer players, killing two

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett announced Thursday that a 34-year-old woman whose truck drove onto a soccer field in Wichita, Kansas, on Oct. 17 will not be criminally charged, saying evidence shows she had been napping and the crash was not intentional. The crash at the Stryker Sports Complex, at about 3:30 p.m., killed Cole Adrian, 6, and Nicholas Schafer, 35, and injured 10 others. Bennett said toxicology results showed no sign of intoxication. The woman, who has not been publicly identified, had driven about 200 miles from Garden City in her husband's Chevrolet because her own vehicle had tire pressure problems. Authorities said she arrived around 10:40 a.m., left for lunch around 1:20 p.m., then parked near the field about an hour later and told her children she was tired. Her 14-year-old daughter put a sunshade across the windshield. The truck sat stationary for 46 minutes before moving onto the field. An off-duty police officer and others who reached it found her sobbing and apologizing, and witnesses said she looked as if she had just woken. Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan joined Bennett at the news conference.

Right-leaning outlets lean into the human and sequential detail. The New York Post's headline promises "shocking new details" and calls her a tired soccer mom, then stresses the timeline, the daughter's sunshade and the claim that it blinded her. The Daily Mail leads with her being asleep, adds the injured people's ages (5 to 68) and includes Chris Adrian's tribute to his son. NBC News, on the left, opens with the decision not to charge, Bennett's finding of no intentional crime, and witnesses' descriptions of the driver as sobbing, frantic and sleepy, with less emphasis on the sunshade. All agree on the victims, the toxicology result and the no-charge decision. TMZ's brief report matches that core.