Prosecutors allege officer was
OWI during crash
INDIANAPOLIS - An Edgewood police
officer has been formally charged with operating while intoxicated in relation
to a fatal crash on State Road 32.
On Thursday, the Madison County
Prosecutor's Office filed six felony counts against James D. Foutch, 41, of
Anderson, including reckless homicide and causing death when operating a motor
vehicle while intoxicated.
The charges stem from a crash
on Sunday which killed Jesse Sperry and left his wife Rebecca Sperry critically
injured .
Rebecca, who was
nine-months-pregnant, had to have an emergency C-section at St. Vincent
Hospital in Indianapolis. The baby, named Autumn Marie Sperry, was transported
to Riley Children's Hospital.
According to a probable cause
affidavit released Thursday, the crash data recorder recovered from Foutch's
GMC Yukon showed that it had been traveling 92 miles per hour just prior to the
crash and indicated no braking had occurred.
Rebecca told investigators that
she saw Foutch's vehicle approaching in her rearview mirror and told her
husband, "Oh my gosh, look at this guy, he is, like, flying. I think he is
going to hit us."
Then Foutch "full-out
nailed them," court documents quote Rebecca as saying.
Foutch told investigators that
he didn't see the Sperry's vehicle because he was "looking down at his
gauges."
He also told police he had
taken a prescribed 7.5mg Hydrocodone a few hours prior, and that he had taken
one of his girlfriend's Xanaxes the previous day. A blood test showed that he
had Hydrocodone in his system at the time of the crash, according to court
documents.
Foutch was being held at the
Madison County Jail on $20,000 bond