107-mph driver convicted of killing 2 college students in fiery crash sentenced
LEBANON, Ohio (WXIX) - A driver will spend 10 years in jail for killing two college students in a fiery, 107-mph crash.
Mary Ellen Huelsman, 59, of Bellbrook, was found guilty last month of two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular homicide in the May 2023 deaths of Springboro High School graduates Michael Barch, 20, and Karys Seipel, 19.
Warren County Common Pleas Judge Timothy Tepe presided over her bench trial. In convicting Huelsman, he rejected her defense’s claim that she was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Huelsman was speeding 107 mph in a 2022 Kia Telluride SUV on Ohio 48 when prosecutors say she ran a red light at the Lytle Five Point intersection in Clearcreek Township and slammed into the passenger side of a 2016 Chevrolet Malibu sedan.
She was driving so fast the impact of the crash shoved the Malibu 250 feet into a telephone pole and the vehicle burst into flames before first responders could get there, according to prosecutors. By comparison, an American football field is 360 feet long.
Barch and Seipel were both pronounced dead at the scene.
Barch just completed his second year at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Seipel finished her first year at Miami University in Oxford.
Warren County Prosecutor Dave Fornshell recently told FOX19 NOW he found it “infuriating that because of Huelsman’s reckless decision that night, a young man and a young woman with tremendously bright futures did not return home to the families that loved them so much.”
Hueslman was sentenced to the max sentence under Ohio’s current sentencing guidelines: Five years per count of aggravated vehicular homicide when alcohol and/or drugs are not a factor, and the lesser charges of vehicular homicide blend into that, Fornshell explained.
The veteran prosecutor said he doesn’t believe five years per count “is anywhere close to being sufficient as a maximum penalty for this kind of offense, but that’s what the current law is. I would absolutely be in support of a change to that. But it is the (Ohio) Legislature that has to do that, we are stuck.”
Ohio’s homicide laws, in general, are “pretty weak” compared to other states, he noted.
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