Sentence imposed in fatal crash case

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

A Van Wert woman convicted of vehicular homicide in connection with a fatal accident in a grocery store parking has avoided jail time.

Instead, Barbara Nickles, 66, will spend the next 90 days under electronic house arrest, serve one year of community control sanctions and have a daily curfew of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. In addition, Van Wert County Common Pleas Court Judge Martin D. Burchfield noted Nickles had four previous auto accidents and suspended her driver’s license for the maximum allowed by law, five years, with no driving privileges at all. During Wednesday morning’s sentencing hearing, Nickles was also told once the license suspension is over, she will be required to take a remedial driving course. She was also ordered to pay court costs and partial court appointed counsel fees.

The vehicular homicide charge was tied to a July 28 accident in the parking lot of Ruler Foods in Van Wert. Nickles was operating a 2023 Cadillac XT5,  while in the grocery store’s parking lot, when she began to accelerate in reverse at a high rate of speed from her marked parking space. She struck a pedestrian, later identified as Omar Sites, causing him to collide with another parked motor vehicle, which resulted in serious injuries. After striking Sites, Nickles continued to operate the vehicle at a high rate of speed in reverse, causing damage to multiple parked motor vehicles.

Sites, who was airlifted to a Fort Wayne hospital, passed away August 11.

Nickles was initially charged in Van Wert Municipal Court with vehicular assault, a fourth degree felony, and negligent assault, a third degree misdemeanor. The case was bound over to a Van Wert County grand jury, but its members opted against a felony charge.

In early October, Nickles changed her plea from not guilty to no contest to a single count of vehicular homicide, a first degree misdemeanor, and was found guilty by Judge Burchfield. The charge carried a possible jail sentence of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, along with a five year license suspension.

During Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, defense attorney John Hopkins called the incident a tragic accident and noted Nickles was driving a rental car that she wasn’t familiar with. Before the sentence was imposed, an emotional Nickles read aloud a prepared statement and apologized for what transpired on the day of the accident.

“When I went to Ruler’s on July 28, I had no intentions of hurting anyone or throwing lives into complete chaos,” she stated while fighting tears. “I was driving a car I had never driven before and in just a few seconds I caused a horrible tragedy. I am extremely sorry and if there was a way to erase the chain of events, I certainly would. In just a few moments, lives were changed forever and there has not been one day since that I don’t think about the people I hurt.”

During the hearing, assistant prosecutor Dillon Staas did not ask for jail time but did request the maximum license suspension, and Judge Burchfield noted the incident was a “negligent accident.”

“That’s really what happened here and it had terrible consequences,” he said. “

Judge Burchfield also recalled when he was a child, he had a neighbor that accidentally ran over another child and said the man had trouble dealing with it for the remainder of his life, and while not part of the sentence, he encouraged Nickles to seek professional counseling to better deal with the accident.