A Garden City man found guilty of three felonies after an accident that resulted in the death of a Brown County man and serious injuries to his fiancee is scheduled to be sentenced at 9 a.m. Friday in Bartholomew Circuit Court.
In early May, a jury found Ruel Pedigo III, 50, of 1085 Jonesville Road guilty of criminal actions resulting in the Jan. 27, 2018 death of former Columbus resident Patrick N. Bowman.
Bowman, 35, was residing in Brown County at the time of his death with his fiancee, Sarah Fliehman, when the traffic accident that took his life occurred on Jonathan Moore Pike near the light at Circle K and Starbucks.
The jury heard evidence that Pedigo was under the influence of methamphetamine and possibly marijuana when his tow truck smashed into the back of Bowman’s Mazda 3 car in the chain-reaction accident involving multiple vehicles.
Bowman – a 2001 Columbus North High School graduate – was pronounced dead at the scene.
It took a little more than an hour for a seven-man, five-woman jury to convict Pedigo of:
- Operating a vehicle with a controlled substance in the blood, a Level 4 felony
- Reckless homicide, a Level 5 felony.
- Causing serious bodily injury when operating a motor vehicle with a controlled substance in the blood, a Level 6 felony.
For more on this story, see Thursday’s Republic.
