The truck driver was found guilty due to low charges in the event of bus accidents

Newark, Ohio – A truck driver who triggered a crash reaction accident by bus, in which three students from Ohio High School and three adults were convicted on Friday for vehicle murder, but were vacated for increasing the charges.

The three students killed in 2023 were in a charter bus, and a teacher and two accompanying persons in another vehicle who was hit by the tractor trailer also died.

The judge of Licking County, David Branstool, found Jacob McDonald from Zanesville, who was guilty of six offenses due to vehicle murder, decided that he was not guilty because of serious vehicle murder, a criminal offense.

The judge said McDonald's actions in causing the crash were negligent, but not ruthless. McDonald could have had three decades in prison if he had been convicted of the more serious charges, but instead, according to his lawyer, he has a maximum sentence of 18 months.

Some family members of the victims left the court before the judge announced the judgment.

The public prosecutor said that McDonald had accelerated and did not manage to slow down traffic on Interstate 70 because he looked at his phone.

His defender Chris Brigdon denied that the mobile phone data mentioned by the investigators did not clearly show what happened before the crash. Brigdon said after the verdict has been announced that McDonald was still destroyed by the crash because he knows that he caused it.

According to investigators, McDonald's Truck hit an SUV and pushed it onto the bus, who promoted students from the local school district of Tuscarawas Valley in the east of Ohio. Some of the vehicles catch fire.

Five vehicles were involved in the crash in Licking County east of Columbus. The bus carried the students to a conference of the Ohio School Boards in Columbus.