(From the Newton County Prosecuting Attorney's Office)A Joplin man has been sentenced to prison after entering a guilty plea to a Class C felony of Driving While Intoxicated Involving the Death of a Passenger.
William Deckard, 24, of Joplin, Missouri was sentenced to 5 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections by Judge Kevin Selby of the 40th Judicial Circuit after pleading guilty as charged without the benefit of a plea offer.
The charges arose out of a fatality wreck on River Road east of Highway 86 just south of Joplin on June 21, 2023. A probable cause statement filed by the Missouri State Highway Patrol outlined that the defendant admitted to consuming liquor and beer and smoking marijuana before operating his 2009 Chevy Cobalt at a high rate of speed off of the roadway into a mailbox in the single-vehicle crash, leading the death of Liberty Fowler, his passenger.
“We ask that you sentence the defendant to the maximum amount of time permitted by law,” argued Keegan Tinney, Newton County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, at the hearing. “The family has suffered extreme loss at the hands of the defendant’s own actions and we believe that sentence is appropriate.”
“The defendant has taken responsibility for his reckless actions that led to the senseless loss of life of Liberty Fowler,” said Newton County Prosecuting Attorney William Lynch. “There is nothing that the criminal justice system can do to restore this kind of loss, but we remain hopeful that this measure of justice brings closure to her grieving family.”
“We are here because of a tragic event and the loss of a life that should not have been taken,” pronounced Judge Selby at sentencing. “Nothing I do here brings her back, I would if I could.”
The case was investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and prosecuted by Keegan Tinney and William Lynch of the Newton County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
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