Friends Blaine Fisher and McKade Nielsen were riding their bikes and skateboards on Greenleaf Boulevard late on a Friday night in June 2021 when they were struck by a white pickup truck.
Blaine was killed while McKade was seriously injured. Now the man charged with multiple felonies for leaving the scene of that accident has pleaded guilty to two counts.
A few days after the collision, the driver of the truck, 36-year-old Ronnie Hapner, turned himself in and was charged with multiple felonies of leaving the scene of an accident.
Last week Hapner and Elkhart County prosecutors filed a plea deal that will see him spend 16 years in prison and then another two years of house arrest. He will be sentenced in early September, though he is required to report to the Elkhart County Jail by next Monday.
Hapner’s latest convictions are not his first and members of Blaine Fisher’s family questioned why the man had been allowed to drive following a slew of prior offenses. Court records show Hapner had four prior convictions going back to 2005 for driving without a license or driving while suspended. In 2019, Hapner pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated. At the time of the crash, Hapner was on probation for a false informing conviction.
It's unclear how fast Hapner was going at the time of the crash. The post road signs on that stretch of Greenleaf show the speed limit is 35 miles per hour.
