A 21-year-old killed his friend in a freak accident as he was driving drunk and his friend’s head was hanging out of the window and was decapitated by a telephone pole
Aged just 21 John Kemper Hutcherson made a decision that would change the course of his life forever – and leave his best friend dead after being decapitated in a horror car accident.
Early one Sunday morning in August, 2004, 21-year-old Josh made the catastrophic decision to get behind the wheel of his car after he had been drinking with his close pal, Francis Daniel Brohm in the passenger seat. The pair had spent the evening in the pub with friends.
Laughing and joking, the pair set off home in Marietta, Georgia, in the US. On the journey back, Francis started to feel ill and put his head out of the window of the moving car to get some air. Then, horror struck when John veered off the road and hit a telephone pole support wire. It decapitated his friend.
Horrifyingly, John didn’t stop or call for help and continued driving for another 12 miles to his home in the suburbs. Police say that he made it all the way home, chose to sleep in his bloodied clothes, leaving a headless Francis in his truck. Officers were not informed of the incident until a neighbour was walking his baby daughter later on that Sunday morning and discovered the corpse sat in the vehicle on the driveway.
The neighbour immediately called the authorities and when police arrived they were able to uncover further details that led to the shocking incident. When officers arrived at his home Hutcherson was still fast asleep but when they spoke to him he was was remorseful for his actions. Although, they did not suspect any foul play was involved.
After the tragic death of the young man, Francis’ family were praying to get through this devastating time. His uncle, Tom Goodin, shared: “It doesn’t all make sense to us now. It doesn’t seem fair at times. I am a firm believer in His will be done,” a US news outlet reported.
Elizabeth Goodin, Francis’ grandmother, shared that her daughter, Kathy, shared a close relationship with Hutcherson’s mother and the rest of the family. She said: “He has got a tough, tough road ahead of him, and his mother, she came over to Kathy hysterical and said, ‘Kathy, how are we going to get through this?'”
Following on from the drink driving incident that killed his childhood best friend, Hutcherson was jailed in Georgia on a $100,000 bond. However, he was later released after the victim’s relatives pleaded on his behalf, and his bail was reduced to $50,000. District Attorney Pat Head at the time assured people that the bond was consistent with other vehicular homicide cases. He said: “The decision is based on our assessment of whether he is a flight risk, whether he might intimidate witnesses and other factors.” The Brohm family attorney, David Lipscomb, shared: “They don’t want to see him in jail. Their position is he needs to be out to receive whatever treatment is necessary to put his life back together,” CBS reports.
