‘Most helpless I’ve ever been.’ Dad of boy killed in crash speaks at driver’s trial
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Marco Shemwell’s death: Former UK student on trial
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The father of 4-year-old Marco Shemwell felt helpless when his son was hit by a car and dragged down Cooper Drive after the family left a University of Kentucky football game in 2018.
Ben Shemwell, 40, had taken Marco and Marco’s brother Maximo to the UK game at Kroger Field on Sept. 15, 2018. Marco was hit by Jacob Heil, who was driving his car on Cooper Drive when the family was leaving the stadium. Shemwell testified Tuesday in Heil’s trial on reckless homicide and DUI charges.
“I was the most helpless I’ve ever been,” Shemwell told jurors. “I didn’t really know what to do. Maximo was crying and ... both of us were screaming ‘Marco.’”
Shemwell said the day started like a routine Saturday. The Shemwell family had season tickets to UK football games, and the boys, dressed in UK attire, were looking forward to a father-sons day at the game. They parked on a side street off Tates Creek Road and walked to the stadium, using Cooper Drive, Shemwell said.
The boys had a great time at the game, Shemwell said, but they left early. Marco was fair-skinned and burned easily, and Shemwell remembered the day was hot.
“I don’t know how hot it was, but it was hotter than expected,” he testified.
They watched the band play at halftime because Marco wanted to hear the drummers, then they started their walk back to the car.
When they were on Cooper Drive, the boys were running and playing in a field away from the road, Shemwell said. He gathered them close to him as they prepared to cross Cooper, he said.
“I remember telling the boys that they have to look both ways and they have to watch for traffic and that we will be crossing the street together,” he said.
They stopped at someone’s driveway, “stayed a safe distance from the street,” and waited to cross as cars passed them in both directions, Shemwell said.
Shemwell said he looked down at his sons, making sure they were next to him, off the street. Heil’s attorney told jurors Monday that Marco was in the street when Heil struck him.
“When I looked back up and to my left, we had a car coming at us,” Shemwell testified.
Shemwell testified that he was standing in the middle of his sons and tried to pull them farther back from the road. He was able to get 7-year-old Maximo out of the way, but he couldn’t get Marco out of the way.
“I remember trying to look for Marco, and he wasn’t there beside me,” Shemwell said. “I realized that he had been hit. I looked fairly close to me, and it took me a while to find him.”
Shemwell said he found Marco farther down the street, lying on the ground near a tree. He ran to him and picked him up in his arms, Shemwell said.
“In my opinion, he was gone,” Shemwell said. “He was dead.”
Shemwell said he couldn’t find anyone to help him immediately, so he started praying. He tried to call 911, “but for some reason, I couldn’t dial the number.”
Other people had shown up after realizing there was a crash, he said. One called 911.
Lexington firefighter and paramedic Spencer Elbert responded. He testified that the call came in at 1:54 p.m. He was dispatched at 1:59 p.m. and showed up one minute later. He said when he arrived, another firefighter was already performing CPR on Marco, who didn’t have a pulse.
Marco was a “code blue,” Elbert said, indicating cardiac and pulmonary arrest.
Elbert helped care for Marco. He noticed Shemwell and Maximo at the scene.
“I said, ‘I don’t want him to watch this,’ and I asked the brother to be removed,” Elbert said.
Elbert found Marco’s pulse after the crew got the boy in the ambulance and left for the hospital.
Marco died two days later after he was declared brain dead, the boy’s mother, Liz Shemwell, told jurors previously.
Boy’s dad: ‘No doubt’ that he was safely away from street
Ben Shemwell said he and his sons were safely off the road when the crash happened, and Heil’s car was coming right at them when they were standing off the street.
“There’s no doubt that ... I was standing a safe distance from the street,” Shemwell said. “I would say 2 or 3 feet or so from the street at least.”
Shemwell said Heil’s car was half if not all the way off the road by the time it reached Shemwell and his sons. He said he wasn’t sure how fast Heil’s car was going, but it didn’t seem like it was traveling “exceptionally fast.”
Shemwell said he didn’t see the instant that the crash happened as he was trying to pull himself and his kids away.
Detective: Investigation shows Marco was in the road
A Lexington police officer who investigated the crash testified Tuesday that Marco was likely in the road when the crash happened, based on measurements taken of Marco’s injuries and Heil’s car, combined with a tire mark found at the scene of the crash.
Greg Marlin, the officer who works in Lexington’s Collision Reconstruction Unit, said a tire mark at the scene indicated Heil’s car veered about 10 inches out of the lane he was in on Cooper Drive when the crash happened. But the location of the damage on his car indicated Marco was in the lane — as opposed to on the side of the road — when he was hit, Marlin said.
Even though Marlin’s investigation showed Marco was in the lane, Marlin testified that there would have been “clearance” space between Marco and Heil’s car if Heil had been driving in the middle of the lane rather than off to the right.
Marlin also said he worked on a visibility study on Cooper Drive to determine if there would have been anything hindering Heil from seeing Marco in the road or near the road.
That visibility study found “no blockage” that would have kept Heil from seeing Marco, Marlin said.
But there was a lack of contrast between Marco’s clothing and the background, making visibility more difficult, Marlin testified.
If convicted, Heil could face one to five years in prison on the reckless homicide charge. He could also face a fine or community service if he’s convicted on his DUI charge.
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 11:46 AM.
