For three days after a crash, he was trapped in a car with his dead gf. Now he faces charges.
The inwards track on Washington politics.
*Invalid email address
Kevin Bell was driving with his gf when he lost control of the SUV and went off the roadway, crashing into a tree down a deep embankment in rural Indiana.
His gf, Nikki Reed, died instantaneously, but Bell was stuck inwards the vehicle because of a violated gam. Eventually, on Sept. Twenty — three days after the deadly crash — he crawled out of the wreckage.
Police say Bell then lied to them, and that he intended to leave the crash scene without telling medical personnel that there had been an accident or that his girlfriend’s assets was still inwards the SUV.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Bell originally told police that Reed was the one driving the two thousand Ford Explorer when she lost control.
But when medics were treating Bell, an Indiana State Police trooper noticed that he had an abrasion on his chest that appeared to be from the driver’s side seat belt, according to the affidavit. Bell later admitted that he had been at the wheel when the SUV crashed.
Bell was not supposed to be driving because his license had been suspended, and he had outstanding arrest warrants from Pennsylvania, where he lives, according to the affidavit. Authorities also say that Bell didn’t call police while he was stuck inwards the vehicle despite having a cellphone and a signal.
Bell told police that he couldn’t find his or Reed’s cellphone to make a call. When he got out of the SUV, he found his phone on the ground, the affidavit said. He texted “car accident” to his boss before his phone died. He told police he didn’t know why he didn’t call nine hundred eleven instead.
Bell was charged Tuesday with two felonies — driving while suspended resulting in death and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death — as well as three misdemeanors, including failure to report a dead assets.
The crash happened off U.S. Route fifty in Jennings County, Ind., on Sept. 17, when Bell, 39, and Reed, 37, were driving from Pennsylvania to Indiana. Reed, of Seymour, Ind., had traveled to Pennsylvania to pick up her beau and promised to comeback in time for her son’s bday, her family members said on Facebook.
Reed’s daughter told police that she had last spoken with her mother shortly after 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 17. The two talked via FaceTime, and Reed told her daughter that she would be home in about an hour, the affidavit said. During the conversation, Reed appeared to be sitting in the front passenger seat of her SUV.
On Sept. Legitimate, after Reed didn’t display up for her son’s bday, her ex-husband called police, according to the affidavit.
Two days later, shortly after five p.m. on Sept. 20, a passerby spotted Bell near a guardrail on U.S. Route fifty and called for help. Bell, according to the affidavit, did not primarily tell police that he had been in the crash or that his girlfriend’s figure was in the Explorer.
After a records check on Bell’s name and driver’s license, a state trooper found that he was the person known to be with Reed when she was reported missing, the affidavit said.
When the trooper asked where Reed was, Bell had a astonished look on his face and told police that she was still in the vehicle down the ravine, the affidavit said.
Bell’s mother, Gloria Bell, told the York Daily Record that the crash was an accident and her son didn’t attempt to kill Reed.
“I feel bad for him,” she told the paper. “I just am pleading that things go well out there for him and that the judge would display grace on him.”
Bell has an active warrant for his arrest, tho’ no foul play is suspected in Reed’s death. An autopsy found that she died because of a violated neck and blunt force trauma.
Amy B Wang contributed to this report.