An Aurora woman has been charged in connection with a March 26 fatal traffic accident that killed a pedestrian on Chagrin Road in Bainbridge Township.
An Aurora woman has been charged in connection with a March 26 fatal traffic accident that killed a pedestrian on Chagrin Road in Bainbridge Township.
Brooke Jarvis, 29, of Deer Island Drive, Aurora, was arrested late last Friday night after the SUV she was driving struck and killed a man who was walking along Chagrin Road with a woman. According to Chardon Municipal Court records, Jarvis had a blood-alcohol content of .212 at or near the time of the crash.
Bainbridge Township Police Chief Jon Bokovitz told the Geauga County Maple Leaf that field sobriety tests were performed on scene Jarvis, at which time she was taken into custody for suspicion of driving while intoxicated, and then administered at breath test at the police station.
Jarvis was charged with one count of aggravated vehicular homicide, a second-degree felony, and two first-degree misdemeanor counts of operative a vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or both. She entered a plea of not guilty to all charges at her March 29 arraignment in Chardon Municipal Court and subsequently was released from the Geauga County Safety Center after posting a $50,000 surety bond.
Jarvis, who works for her family’s equine and farm insurance agency, was represented at her arraignment by the Cleveland criminal defense firm Zukerman, Lear & Murray. She has no prior criminal history, according to court records.
A pretrial in municipal court is set for April 13.
Bokovitz said Jarvis was driving — with a passenger in her SUV — eastbound on Chagrin Road at approximately 10:30 p.m. when she struck from behind 32-year-old Chadwick McIntosh, of Mineral Ridge, who was walking with a woman in the eastbound lane, just east of Savage Road. The woman was not struck.
“They were walking in the same lane that the car was driving,” Bokovitz said, adding accident investigators are attempting to determine exactly where Chadwick was on the road when he was hit from behind.
The chief said the woman is a Bainbridge resident who lives in Tanglewood. According to other sources, she was Chadwick’s girlfriend.
McIntosh was pronounced dead at the scene, Bokovitz said.
The chief said Jarvis did stop at the scene and another motorist who also was traveling eastbound and came upon the scene called 9-1-1 to report the accident.
Bokovitz said investigators are “back-tracking” where all parties involved were prior to the accident, but a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told the Maple Leaf that Jarvis had been at The Greenville Inn earlier that evening.
Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz said Bainbridge police and the Chagrin Valley Accident Investigation Team are still gathering evidence. Once that investigation is completed, he said the case would be sent to his office for presentment to the grand jury. He declined further comment at this time.
Source: Geauga County