Boy charged with dropping basketball-sized block of ice that killed former Hopewell Township resident Elaine Cowell Jan. 3.
By John Tredrea
Dennis Gumbs, the 16-year-old Allentown, Pa., boy charged with dropping the basketball-sized block of ice that killed former Hopewell Township resident Elaine Cowell Jan. 3, will be prosecuted as a juvenile, not an adult.
That was the ruling of Lehigh County Judge Lawrence Brenner after a wrenching daylong hearing Monday.
Dennis’ attorney, Rachel Torres, said Tuesday that, prior to the hearing, the boy had been evaluated intensively by five mental health professionals. "All five of them reached basically the same conclusion, which is that he has the mentality of a juvenile," Ms. Torres said.
Pennsylvania law stipulates that factors Judge Brenner was required to consider before making a decision include how much of a threat Dennis could be to public safety, whether any mental problems he has are treatable, and the effect of his offense on the victim.
Ms. Torres admits Dennis has told several of the mental health professionals who evaluated him that he did indeed drop the block of ice from an overpass on Route 22 in Whitehall Township, Pa., while knowing the vehicle carrying Ms. Cowell, 33, was passing underneath.
Ms. Cowell was in the front passenger seat. Her husband, William Cowell, was driving. Their three young children were in the back seat. The block of ice crashed through the windshield, hitting Ms. Cowell in the chest. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital less than an hour later. The cause of death was blunt chest trauma, officials said.
Ms. Torres said the case will go to trial unless she and prosecutors can agree on a charge to which Dennis could plead guilty. She would not say what charge she might propose or find acceptable on behalf of the Gumbs family. He currently is being charged with homicide.
If Dennis is found guilty, he could be forced to stay in a juvenile detention center until he is 21, Ms. Torres said.
During the hearing, the mental health professionals said the ice-dropping incident was atypical of Dennis in that he has no criminal record and no history of violent behavior or abuse of drugs or alcohol.
All the professionals also agreed that Dennis sometimes "shows bad judgment, the maturity level of a 10- to 12-year-old and that his intelligence is at the low end of average," Ms. Torres said. "They also all felt that, with treatment, he could improve significantly."
Contacted Tuesday, Ms. Cowell’s mother, Janice Ubry, who still lives in Hopewell Township, said what bothered her most at the hearing Monday was that Dennis "showed no remorse." She added: "I understand that the judicial system has done what the people working for it think is best. I know he’s young and has no prior offenses and I hope he can be rehabilitated. But I don’t want him to go scot-free. I think he needs to be punished for what he did, so that he’ll face the reality of it and then feel remorse. How else are things supposed to get better?"
Ms. Ubry admits that the lack of remorse she sees in Dennis is "tearing her up inside" in a way that feels like going around and around in nightmarish circles. She said: "I want him to be sorry for what he did. You can forgive someone if they’re sorry. But how can I forgive him if he doesn’t care? And not being able to forgive him makes me feel like I’m rotting away. That’s where I’m stuck right now. I have to try to get past it. But it’s hard."
Pausing reflectively, she concluded: "When the hearing was over, they took Dennis to the detention center. His father cried and said something about his son not being able to come home. He may come home someday, though. But my daughter, she will never come home again."