Tuesday, August 29, 2017
‘We got justice today’
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Kim Harvey didn’t finish her victim impact statement Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Instead, she let her mother – Judy Dailey, who was killed last November after she was run down in the parking lot of Southern Park Mall – finish it. Harvey had saved her final voicemail message and played it for the court just before the man who pleaded guilty, Matthew Wilson, 24, was to be sentenced by Judge John Durkin.
“I know you’re busy, honey,” Judy Dailey said after thanking her daughter for a nice evening at a family gathering a few nights before. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.”
Wilson, who has a Florida address, was sentenced to six months in the Mahoning County jail, the maximum sentence he could receive for the misdemeanor count of vehicular homicide, to which he pleaded guilty in June.
Wilson struck Dailey on Nov. 29 in the parking lot near J.C. Penney while he was having a seizure. The case was presented to a grand jury as both a felony and misdemeanor, but the grand jury chose to indict on the misdemeanor.
Dailey’s family was incensed that Wilson was willingly not taking medication for his seizures, which her husband, Charles Dailey, told the judge during his statement was akin to Wilson’s playing Russian roulette with other drivers – and his wife just happened to be the target that was hit.
The family also was upset that Wilson was charged with OVI in Portage County on Nov. 27 and had been to court for that case just hours before Judy Dailey was killed. They also were upset because Wilson moved to Florida and got a driver’s license there yet never told anyone about his pending OVI or vehicular homicide case.
Charles Dailey said Judy was not just his wife but “his girlfriend,” and said he has a hole in his heart that can never be filled.
“I feel like a part of me has been amputated,” he said. He said his wife was the leader of a family that included four children and seven grandchildren and they have been devastated by her death. About 70 people were on hand in the courtroom for the sentencing.
Charles Dailey said he felt Wilson deserved the maximum sentence because he chose to drive without taking his medication, thus endangering himself, his family and anyone else on the road.
“We have to live with the sentence Matthew Wilson has given us for the rest of our lives,” he said.
Charles Dailey said he still wished the case had been indicted as a felony, but he was pleased with the sentence.
“We got justice today,” he said.
Harvey recounted the day her mother died, the calls she received from a hospital chaplain and calls she made to her brothers and her father, who was at a camp five hours away and who did not know his wife had died until he got to the hospital. She described in sometimes agonizing detail her father’s reaction when he learned of her mother’s death and her own reaction when she viewed her mother’s body in the hospital.
“I want to scream at him, and pardon my language, ask, what the hell are you doing?” she said.
She misses her mother so much she has at times smelled her makeup kit or felt her hairbrush to feel closer to her, Harvey said. She said, sometimes through tears, that she has anxiety, depression and insomnia and has not gone back to school for her master’s degree in nursing, which her mother wanted her to do.
Wilson’s attorney, Ross Douglas, asked for a sentence of probation, saying his client has just one misdemeanor conviction – the OVI from Portage County, he took responsibility for his crime and is remorseful. Wilson apologized to the Daileys.
“I’m very deeply sorry for what happened,” Wilson said. “I wish every single day it didn’t happen.”
Judge Durkin also addressed some concerns the family had about an Aug. 9 sentencing date that was canceled. The judge said he needed the extra time to review some medical records he did not have access to in order to make sure he made the proper decision at sentencing. Judge Durkin said the records showed Wilson did not have seizures for an extended time but then began having recurring seizures two months before he hit Judy Dailey. The judge said it was Wilson’s responsibility to take his medication and the fact he did not made it the worst form of the offense.
“There was absolutely no reason you should have been driving a vehicle on that day,” Judge Durkin said.