Report: Both are at fault in triple-fatal crash

Accident expert: Semi driver didn’t stop; car’s driver distracted, DUI

DIXON – A driver involved in a triple-fatal crash in June was under the influence of marijuana and trying to access the Internet when his car was struck by a semitrailer, according to a report from the Lee County Sheriff’s Department.

The semi driver, Nathan Merrill, 34, of Oregon, was southbound on Harmon Road in Nelson on June 17 when he ran the stop sign at state Route 30 and hit an eastbound car driven by John Francis Parrett III, 26.

Parrett, his mother, Kim Gregorich, 51, and his 16-month-old daughter, Inara Parrett, died at the scene.

His fiancée and the girl’s mother, Elizabeth Johnson, 22, was injured. All were from Shellsburg, Iowa.

On Sept. 2, a grand jury failed to indict Merrill on criminal charges. Because of that, Lee County State’s Attorney Henry Dixon said he is considering only traffic charges.

Dixon did not return a message left late Wednesday afternoon.

According to a report from Cpl. Jared Yater, the sheriff’s accident reconstructionist, Merrill was going too fast to stop, his semi was 2,501 to 5,000 pounds overweight, and his tire tread was less than 2/32 of an inch deep.

He did try to avoid hitting the car, though, the report said.

Merrill was driving for Martin & Co. of Oregon, and had just left its Wastone Quarry, where its load had been weighed, the report said.

As for Parrett, an autopsy revealed he had more than trace amounts of marijuana in his system at the time of the crash, and was using an “electronic communication device” to “command or request an Internet site” at the time of the accident. He made no attempt to avoid the crash, Yater said in the report.

The report’s conclusion: “The semi was not legal to be on the road when it left the scale house at Wastone Quarry in Dixon, and the car should not have been operated on the roadway by John Parrett, because he was under the influence of ‘any amount’ of drugs.

For criminal charges to be filed, a grand jury must consider a death a reckless homicide, and to do that, “you have to have a reckless act.”

In Merrill’s case, “he wasn’t speeding. He had one violation – that was running a stop sign. Is that reckless or not? If you had a combination, speeding, ran the stop sign, then you start getting into a reckless act,” Yater said.

“When you have one moving violation, it’s sad and bad that people were killed. Keep in mind the driver of the car was under the influence of drugs.”

Yater will meet with the state’s attorney’s office, which will decide if Merrill will face any traffic citations, Yater said. That meeting has not yet been scheduled.

Yater’s not sure what charges Merrill will face. “The assumption [is the] stop sign violation,” he said.

Had he lived, Parrett would have been charged with DUI and Merrill with a stop sign violation, Yater said.

When asked to comment on the report, Wes Martin, vice president and superintendent of field operations for the excavation company, said Wednesday night that “this thing’s all up in the air,” and that further comment would need to come from his attorney.

Merrill could not be reached for comment.