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Dad innocent in girl's death

Kevin Wolfe was charged after he let an 11-year-old back up his car in a Largo parking lot, resulting in his daughter getting run over.

By ALEX LEARY
Published March 4, 2005

[Times photo: Cherie Diez] Kevin Wolfe wipes away tears during his trial Thursday as he testifies about how his daughter died.
	Summer Wolfe was killed May 22 when she was struck by a car driven by an 11-year-old boy as her father sat in the passenger seat. [Family photo]
[Times photo: Cherie Diez] Kevin Scott Wolfe's sister, Carrie Wolfe, left, and his wife, Michelle, react Thursday as his verdict of not guilty is read.
[Times photo: Lara Cerri] Michelle and Kevin Wolfe walk out of the Pinellas County jail on Thursday.

CLEARWATER - At his lowest moment, hiding in a hotel room to avoid the police, Kevin Wolfe didn't care if he spent the rest of his life in jail.

He just wanted one last moment of freedom: the chance to attend the funeral of his 2-year-old daughter.

On Thursday night, as jurors deliberated the case of a father accused of manslaughter in the death of his own daughter, Wolfe was led back to jail.

He wept as a court bailiff led him out.

"I'll call you," Wolfe said softly to his wife, Michelle.

Hours later, Wolfe prepared to leave jail a free man as a Pinellas-Pasco jury found him innocent of culpable negligence manslaughter in the death of his youngest child, Summer.

"I'm in shock," Michelle Wolfe, 30, said as she left the courtroom. "It'll be really good to have our family back together again but things will never be normal. We'll always have one missing.

"Kevin's suffered through enough," she added.

Prosecutors had said Wolfe was responsible because on May 22 he let an 11-year-old boy back up his family's station wagon, which hit Summer. She died an hour later. Had he been convicted of the second-degree felony, Wolfe could have faced 15 years in prison.

He's free, but only from the confines of prison.

"He's got to live with this for the rest of his life," defense attorney Donald M. O'Leary told jurors in the daylong trial. "He's a prisoner of his mind now."

The jury returned its verdict shortly before 7 p.m., three hours after deliberation began.

Prosecutors, who left without comment, had portrayed Wolfe as a less than ideal parent, reckless with the safety of children.

The fatal accident occurred after Wolfe agreed to create a space in the parking lot of Longbranch Apartments in Largo so children attending a birthday party could play kickball.

At the time, Wolfe had been on probation for grand theft and did not have a driver's license. He admitted smoking marijuana after the accident and failed a drug test, a condition of his probation.

He went into hiding after his daughter's death, staying in hotel rooms with his wife so he could attend Summer's funeral.

"I just want to bury my daughter before they take me to jail," he told the Times in May. "That's all I want."

Wolfe, 30, turned himself in after the funeral and had been in jail since then.

How the 11-year-old got behind the wheel was a matter of dispute.

Wolfe testified that the boy asked him repeatedly to drive the green Ford Taurus station wagon.

"I told him four, five, six times, "No, no, no, no,' " Wolfe said. But he said the boy persisted and he figured there was no harm in letting him back up the car 25 or so feet. Wolfe said that he told someone to watch Summer and that he thought other children were a safe distance from the vehicle.

Wolfe got into the passenger seat, the door still open, as the boy got behind the wheel.

As the boy let off the brake, he said, he felt Summer touch his leg.

Stop! he told the boy.

"But he hit the gas instead of the brake," Wolfe testified. "The car lunged backward. I reached over but it was too late. I felt a bump."

When he saw Summer pinned under a wheel, Wolfe yelled at the boy to go home.

"I didn't want to take it out on him," he said, crying. "It was an accident."

The boy testified that Wolfe asked him to drive, even though he was afraid and had never driven before. He said Wolfe started the car, contrary to Wolfe's testimony.

"It could have been anyone's daughter," prosecutor Janet Olney said in closing arguments.

The car in the hands of an 11-year-old boy, she said, was a deadly weapon - "no different than handing him a shotgun."

Prosecutors did not immediately charge Wolfe, expressing sympathy for the circumstances of Summer's death.

But after reviewing the evidence, they decided to charge him with culpable negligence manslaughter, given what happened that day and Wolfe's history in his native Pennsylvania.

He had previously faced charges of assault and endangering child welfare, filed in 2002 after authorities found his girlfriend's 3-year-old son with bruises on his body, cigarette burns on his neck and two broken ribs. Wolfe said he pleaded guilty to avoid prison time.

When the jury broke for deliberations, the boy walked into the lobby with family.

He said he did not understand why Wolfe contradicted his statements, but that he didn't want Wolfe to be punished further.

"It was just a bad accident," said the boy, now 12.

Judge Douglas Baird reinstated Wolfe's probation for failing the drug test. He will remain under watch for 18 months.

Staff writer Chris Tisch contributed to this report.

[Last modified March 4, 2005, 08:03:23]