Lundry pleads guilty in 2011 fatal hit-and-run

Jeffery G. Lundry, 42, of Brandsville, last week pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge John Moody to three charges related to a fatal Aug. 20, 2011, hit-and-run crash on PP Highway at James Bridge near Dawt. Norwood resident David Littrell, 58, was killed when Lundry’s homemade trailer broke loose from his vehicle and the trailer’s tongue pierced the windshield of the Jeep Littrell was driving. Nancy Littrell, 57, David Littrell’s wife, was severely injured in the incident.

Lundry, who has at least two unrelated felony convictions, pleaded guilty to a class D felony of leaving the scene of an accident with injury, a misdemeanor charge of failure to register a motor vehicle and an infraction of towing a vehicle with an improper secondary safety device. His only clarification came when discussing the improper secondary safety device.

“I had it on there, but it broke,” Lundry said. However, when prosecuting attorney Tom Cline said a proper secondary safety device was not used, Lundry agreed.

He was sentenced to five years’ probation on the charge of leaving the scene of an accident, fined $50 for the charge of failure to register and fined $100 for the charge of towing a vehicle with an improper safety device.

Cline told the Ozark County Times later that the case didn’t qualify for more serious charges, such as involuntary manslaughter, because those cases usually involve a person being very reckless by being intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. The Lundry case was basically an equipment failure, he said, which does not meet the requirements for an involuntary manslaughter charge.

Instead, Lundry was charged with leaving the scene of an accident without identifying himself, a class D felony. He was at the scene when law enforcement officers arrived but left without identifying himself as the driver of the truck that had been towing the runaway trailer. The maximum sentence available to Judge Moody to impose would have been four years in prison; he sentenced Lundry to three years and then suspended the sentence pending five years' probation. Violating probation would most likely mean that Lundry will serve the three years’ prison time.

Cline said that in cases like this, he discusses possible charges and sentences with the victim's family, and in this case the Litrell family told him they thought the sentence is appropriate. 

Read more from the August law day session in the Aug. 15 Ozark County Times.