Dover-area man charged in crash that killed girlfriend

The York County man who survived a car crash down a deep ravine in Indiana that killed his girlfriend, and left him pinned in the car for days, has been charged by state police in the wreck.

Kevin Bell, 39, is facing a handful of charges including failure to report a dead body and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.

Police say he was driving on a suspended license and misinformed officers during the early stages of the investigation because he feared being arrested on his warrant in Pennsylvania.

Bell and his 37-year-old girlfriend, Nikki Reed, were driving from his home in the Dover area to her home in Indiana when their car crashed off a highway earlier this month.

Reed died at the scene.

Read more: Dover-area man trapped three days in wreck with dead girlfriend

Bell has been transferred to a hospital in Indianapolis where he will stay for approximately the next two weeks for surgery to take out pins in his broken leg, his mother, Gloria, said Wednesday.

She said she has spoken to him on the phone every day since the crash, saying he remains in a bed but gets up to walk down the hallways with a walker to prevent blood clots.

Gloria Bell found out about the criminal charges by seeing someone post about them online. She questioned whether they would stick in court.

“I feel bad for him,” she said. “I just am praying that things go well out there for him, and that the judge would show mercy on him.”

Crash shortly before home

Bell and Reed had met in May through a dating app. They made plans two weekends ago for Bell to visit Reed’s family again in Indiana.

On Saturday, Sept. 17, after Reed picked him up near his Newberry Township home, Bell was driving Reed’s Ford Explorer on U.S. Route 50 near the Kentucky-Indiana border. The car went off the road around 1:30 p.m., charging documents state.

Bell told police that he crashed because Reed was rubbing his crotch and chest, documents state. Bell told police that Reed had taken her seatbelt off to get closer to him. In an interview with the York Daily Record last week, Bell had said that he had become distracted by Reed showing him pictures on her phone just prior to the crash.

Police learned through text messages that the two were in a relationship and close enough that Reed called Bell “my husband.”

After going off the road, the car went down an embankment and struck a tree.

After hitting the tree, Bell said, Reed looked like she was breathing for a matter of seconds before the point where he thought she died, documents state.

For the next few days, Bell couldn’t move in the car because of a broken leg, documents state, and he drank water and Gatorade. He heard Reed’s phone ringing but couldn’t find it.

Eventually, he made it out of the car.

Read more:Man trapped 3 days in car: 'I loved her'

He gathered his belongings, including two 14-pound bowling balls, and crawled out of the rear passenger door where he found his cellphone face-down on the ground, police said.

He sent one text message to his boss that read “car accident” before his battery died, documents state. He was unable to charge his phone.

It was on Tuesday – three days after the crash – that police and emergency crews found Bell on the side of the road.

Meanwhile, Reed and Bell had been documented as missing persons. The last that Reed’s family had contact with her was shortly before the crash. Her daughter had Facetimed with Reed, who said she was in the passenger seat of her car and that they would get to a family birthday party in about an hour.

Reed had given her daughter instructions on picking up the birthday cake, documents state.

The charges against Bell

Indiana State Police accuse Bell of failing to contact police to report Reed’s death “even though he had cellphone access and signal,” documents state.

“I believe Mr. Bell was initially deceitful and misinformed investigators during the early stages of this investigation due to his fear of incarceration as a result of his direct association in the death of (Reed),” Trooper Rick Hewitt wrote in charging documents.

But Bell’s mother, Gloria, questions the charges against her son.

Read more:Man crawls to road 3 days after deadly crash

She wondered about the charge of leaving the scene of an accident, saying, “What was he going to do, stay there and die?”

After texting his boss, Bell told his mother that he dialed 9 and then 1 before his phone died in his hand. He had 2 percent battery left. She said he had good reason to call 911 because he needed medical help.

“He didn’t do that intentionally – he didn’t try to kill her,” Gloria Bell said. “It was an accident, and accidents like that happen.”

Police say that they believe Bell would have left the scene without informing the authorities about the crash and Reed. One of the reasons they cite is because he had a warrant out for his arrest in Pennsylvania for failing to appear for harassing communications.

According to online court records and Bell’s mother, he was charged with harassment over the summer.

The charge stems from an exchange of text messages between Bell and his ex-girlfriend regarding the return of his belongings, Bell’s mother said. He paid a fine for the case but didn’t know he had to go and appear in court, his mother said.

When troopers found him on the side of the roadway on Sept. 20, Bell did not initially mention the crash or Reed’s death.

Bell has also been charged with giving a false report. It was not clear Wednesday if he had been arraigned on the charges.

The Jennings County Coroner's Office determined Reed died from a broken neck and blunt force trauma suffered during the crash.

Brooklyn Reed, her daughter, created a page on You Caring, a crowdfunding website, in order to raise money for her mother's funeral expenses. As of Wednesday afternoon, the effort had raised roughly $2,500 of its $5,000 goal.