UPDATE — Charges Filed After This Morning’s Fatal School Bus Accident
FULTON COUNTY — Official charges have been filed against the driver involved in the school bus accident that led to the death of three Mentone Elementary School students.
Alyssa Shepherd, 24, Rochester, has been charged with three counts of reckless homicide, level 5 felonies, and one count of passing a school bus causing injury, a class A misdemeanor. According to online records, a warrant has been issued for her arrest. It is not yet clear if an actual arrest has been made.
The accident happened shortly after 7:15 a.m. today, Oct. 30, on SR 25, in Talma. Shepherd failed to stop as a school bus from the Tippecanoe Valley School Corporation was traveling northbound and stopped, put the stop arm out and had all the emergency lighting that is on the bus activated. The children then started to cross into the roadway when they were struck. There were other children getting on the bus, but only the four were struck.
The children killed in the accident were identified as 6-year-old twin boys Xzavier Ingle and Mason Ingle and their 9-year-old sister, Alivia Stahl. An additional child, Maverik Lowe, 11, was seriously injured in the accident.
The investigation is still ongoing, so there is no information as to whether excessive speed or any other factor played a role in the crash.