DuPage prosecutors detail arrest in fatal crash
After driving into a tree two years ago, a former Wheaton man returned to a party rather than summon help for his badly injured friend and passenger, who died after police found him more than an hour later, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Kevin McCartney, 21, was arrested Tuesday following a lengthy forensic investigation into the Oct. 5, 2009, crash that killed 18-year-old Gregory Hoctor of Wheaton.
Authorities disclosed at a bond hearing Wednesday that red fibers embedded in the driver’s side panel of McCartney’s car and shards of glass in his clothes helped investigators determine he was behind the wheel.
“Alcohol may have been the motive for this whole incident,” DuPage County Prosecutor Mike Fisher told Judge Michael Wolfe. “The defendant was underage at the time and we do have evidence that he was drinking.”
Fisher said the friends had just left a party when McCartney’s Volkswagen GTI went off Dufree Road in Wheaton and slammed into a tree about 3:30 a.m.
Leaving Hoctor “bleeding to death” inside the car, Fisher said, McCartney went back to the party and told friends that Hoctor took off with his vehicle after they began fighting.
Several partygoers told the defendant to call police, Fisher said. McCartney initially refused, but eventually agreed to report the car stolen.
Fisher said McCartney told police the same story he told partygoers. When officers took him home, Fisher said, McCartney gave directions that “interestingly avoided” the crash site.
About 5 a.m., police found Hoctor unconscious but breathing inside the vehicle. He died of massive head injuries 12 hours later.
Fisher said investigators working with the FBI analyzed evidence for months before they determined “there had to be two occupants in the car.”
He said forensic investigators matched shards of glass in McCartney’s clothes to the rear and front windows of his car, and red fibers that were forcefully embedded in the driver’s side panel to a red sweatshirt McCartney wore.
McCartney also had the victim’s blood on his jeans, a superficial ankle injury consistent with a car crash, and a cut to his ear consistent with cuts from tempered glass, authorities said. Fisher said McCartney “brazenly lied to police” when he maintained those injuries were the result of a fight with Hoctor.
“The defendant at no time asked how his friend was doing until he was dropped off at his house,” Fisher said.
Wolfe granted Fisher’s request to keep McCartney’s bail at $350,000, meaning he would need $35,000 to bond out. The judge also barred McCartney from driving and using alcohol or drugs while the case is pending.
McCartney told the court he’s studying finance as a first-year student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he resides. He previously attended College of DuPage.
He faces a felony charge of leaving the scene of a fatal accident and could be sentenced to prison if convicted, prosecutors said.
Hoctor was a 2009 graduate of Wheaton Warrenville South High School.