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By Chris Case
STEELVILLE–A trucker involved in the 2005 highway accident that killed two people has been cleared of felony manslaughter charges.
Jeffrey C. Wiegert, 52, of Pleasant Hope, Mo., was tried on Wednesday, May 9 in the circuit court of Crawford County, before Judge J. Max Price. Jury trial had been waived at the request of the defendant.
Wiegert was found not guilty on two counts of involuntary manslaughter and not guilty on one count of assault in the second degree, all of them class C felonies. Judge Price found the defendant guilty instead of three lesser charges of failing to drive on the right side of the road, class A misdemeanor offenses.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 2 at 1 p.m. It is unlikely that the defendant will be sentenced to serve jail time.
According to Prosecuting Attorney Sid Pearson, the judge did not feel the evidence presented at trial met the level of negligence required for guilty findings on the original charges.
“I thought we had presented sufficient evidence to show that the defendant had been negligent in his driving, but obviously the judge felt differently about it,” said Pearson.
The prosecutor explained that there was clear evidence showing Wiegert had violated Department of Transportation truck driving regulations by exceeding the number of allowable number of driving hours without rest. Doing so, according to Pearson, was a factor in the cause of the I-44 wreck near Cuba that killed two people and seriously injured another, because “we believe as a result of his fatigue, he fell asleep at the wheel.”
Despite having his rig explode into flames in the February 2005 accident, Wiegert walked away from the wreck with only minor injuries.
On the afternoon of February 4, 2005, Wiegert lost control of his 18-wheeler while driving westbound on I-44 five miles west of Cuba. The trailer rig crossed over the highway median and into the eastbound lanes, striking an SUV driven by Jannah Oppermann of St. Louis, causing it to overturn into a ditch. The tractor-trailer then struck a pickup truck and a sedan before exploding.
Captain William D. Hoyt, then 35, of Huntsville, Ala., and Ryan Trotter, then 21, of Bridgeton, Mo., were both killed in the crash when their vehicles got trapped beneath Wiegert’s rig.
Emergency responders on the scene described it as one of the worst highway accidents they had ever witnessed in Crawford County.
Oppermann survived the crash and was airlifted to a St. Louis hospital for treatment. Two weeks later, she filed a wrongful injury suit against Wiegert and the company he hauled for. That case is still pending.
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