Wichita police said Sunday that the 34-year-old woman arrested after a truck drove through a youth soccer game has been released from custody without charges, even after the crash killed two people and injured 10 others. The decision leaves the case in the hands of investigators as the city waits for answers about what sent the pickup onto the fields.
That crash unfolded Saturday at the Stryker Sports Complex in north-east Wichita, where police said the woman was parked before driving onto the soccer fields at about 3.25pm. The dead were identified as six-year-old Cole Adrian and Nicholas Schafer, 35, both from McPherson, Kansas. Police said the injured included five children and five adults, and that all 10 had wounds considered traumatic but not life-threatening.
For families and players, the immediate harm was already clear. Police said two girls ages five and nine, a five-year-old boy, and two boys age eight were among the injured, along with women aged 28, 59 and 65 and men aged 32 and 68. A separate 61-year-old woman experienced medical complications that were unrelated to traumatic injuries. Emergency personnel responded after calls that the pickup struck multiple children and adults, and officers detained the woman at the wheel.
What makes Sunday’s decision harder to reconcile is that it came while the fatal crash remained unresolved. Police said the woman had a valid driver’s license and no outstanding warrants, and the Sedgwick county district attorney’s office was consulted before her release. She also had two of her children in the pickup, while a third child was playing soccer elsewhere at the complex. Those two children were among more than 30 witnesses interviewed by investigators.
Police are still waiting on toxicology results and a mechanical examination of the pickup truck, the two tests most likely to show whether impairment or a vehicle problem played a role. The cause of the crash has not been explained. On Saturday, McPherson City FC said in a Facebook post that it had suffered an unimaginable tragedy at Stryker Soccer Complex, urged people to keep those involved in their thoughts and prayers, and asked for privacy and time to heal. For now, the biggest unanswered question is the one that sits behind the grief: why the truck went onto the field at all.
