DAKOTA CITY — A truck driver charged in connection with a 2023 crash that killed a Dakota City teenager no longer is charged with vehicular homicide, though it’s possible the charge could be refiled.
Chad Bundy, 50, of Hooper, Nebraska, was bound over to district court Wednesday to face a felony charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident. His arraignment was scheduled for Oct. 1 in Dakota County District Court.
At Wednesday’s preliminary hearing, prosecutors dismissed misdemeanor charges of vehicular homicide and load violation. The charges were dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning they could be refiled in the future.
Bundy was arrested in July and charged in connection with the April 27, 2023, accident on Nebraska Highway 35 in which 17-year-old Kassandra Claassen, of Dakota City, was killed.
Investigators believe a pipe fell from a straight truck Bundy was driving, pierced the windshield of Claassen’s Jeep and punctured her chest, causing a fatal wound. Claassen’s vehicle left the road in the 500 block of the highway and rolled. Dakota County Sheriff’s deputies at the scene found a round metal pipe with blood on one end near the Jeep.
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Investigators located surveillance video footage from a nearby farm and observed Claassen’s Jeep traveling west on Nebraska 35. A short time later, an eastbound American Underground Supply truck was seen turning off the highway into the farm lot. The truck driver turned around and headed west on the highway.
Deputies identified Bundy as the truck driver and later contacted him. He told investigators he had turned around because he thought he had forgotten his phone at the Dakota City American Underground Supply office, but found it in his truck and turned around again.
Bundy told investigators he did not know an accident had occurred and did not see Claassen’s Jeep off the highway in a field. He said he saw emergency vehicles when he drove by the second time heading east.
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Publish date : 2024-08-26 08:17:00
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