GALENA — No criminal charges will be filed against the driver who struck and killed two German cyclists in Kansas while they rode on the historic Route 66 as part of a cross-country trip.
The Joplin Globe reports that Cherokee County Attorney Jacob Conard wrote in a letter released Monday that there’s no evidence the 23-year-old Shawnee, Kansas, driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol or operating her minivan in a “reckless or dangerous manner” before she struck 74-year-old Harry Jung and 71-year-old Heinz Gerd Buchel from behind in May. They died at the scene, just north of the Oklahoma state line.
But Conrad noted that the burden of proof is lower in a civil proceeding, and urged the Kansas Highway Patrol to retain reports in case the families sue.
