FARGO — During an emotional hearing Monday, a tow truck driver from Minot was sentenced to four months in the Cass County Jail after he pled guilty to reduced charges stemming from a 2022 crash on Interstate 94 near Tower City that killed a Bismarck woman.
Mario Butler, 45, was initially charged with negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, driving under suspension and driving without liability insurance, but state prosecutors and defense attorneys reached a deal to drop the most serious charge in exchange for a guilty plea on the remaining charges late last week. Butler was scheduled to go to trial on the initial charges this week.
During the Monday, May 6, hearing, victim impact statements were read and given by 43-year-old Kelli Hagerott's family. Hagerott was killed when the SUV her husband was driving crashed into the back of Butler’s stalled and unattended tow truck in the westbound driving lane of the icy interstate late in the evening of Jan. 22, 2022.
Also seriously injured in the crash were Kelli Hagerott's husband, Tim Hagerott, and two of their daughters, who were ages 14 and 9 at the time. The then-14-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury that left her hospitalized for over a month following the crash.
Kelli Hagerott’s mother, Jackie Heinert, who said she and her husband spoke with their daughter on the phone three times a day when Kelli was alive, addressed Butler directly.
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“I just don't understand: Why such an irresponsible act? That you couldn't have moved the truck over when you had to know something bad was going to happen. I know nothing can change. But I just want you to understand what you did to a family. These girls are never going to have their mother. It's all been taken away from us,” she said.
Tim Hagerott gave a short but emotional statement about him and his four daughters, all of whom were in the courtroom, trying to heal from the trauma of losing Kelli and the injuries that resulted from the crash.
“Me and Kelli had been together since high school. I can't put into words the impact this has had,” he said. “I do my best to provide normalcy for the girls. Kelli loved her girls … she was my rock. Not so much to move on, because you can’t move on from someone like Kelli, but ultimately for me and the girls to move forward we just need to show the world a little kindness and love each other and love others as Kelli would want us to do.”
Judge John Irby asked prosecutors to affirm that the family was comfortable with the plea agreement, referencing other victim impact statements that had previously been submitted to the court and that asked for a significantly longer sentence for Butler.
Cass County State’s Attorney Kim Hegvik said that while prosecutors felt confident in their case and would have been willing to take it to trial, the idea of reliving the crash and the possibility that a jury might return a not guilty verdict were not risks the family wanted to run.
“Their lives have been altered forever,” Hegvik said. “You can't ever get over something like this. There’s nothing that can make this family whole again. Now it's just: How can they move forward? These children are finally getting back to some sense of normalcy in their lives. They're able to participate in their activities again. I believe that the concern with taking a case like this to trial was that it could result in some backsliding on the progress that they've made.”
Hegvik said the most important thing to the family was that Butler be held accountable for what happened.
“They wanted him convicted of a felony, and all the things that come along with being a convicted felon. They wanted him to serve time in custody. And they wanted him to be placed on supervised probation to ensure that he remains law-abiding after his release," she said. "It was important to everyone that there be certainty and finality in a sentence when we walked into the courtroom today.”
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Butler admitted that his actions created substantial risk and showed “extreme indifference to the value of human life,” according to the plea agreement. He has a lengthy history of driving with a suspended license and without liability insurance in North Dakota both before and after the crash.
I just don't understand: why such an irresponsible act? ... I know nothing can change. But I just want you to understand what you did to a family.
Jennifer Braun, Butler’s defense attorney, attempted to share some additional facts of the case that led to the plea agreement, but Irby shut her down.
“That won’t be necessary. The family wants to put this behind them," Irby said. "I look at this and it could have been so much different if the defendant had just done something else. It was a ticking time bomb, leaving that vehicle out there."
Butler appeared to weep as Braun read a statement he had written, apologizing to the Hagerott family.
“I am so sorry that this happened. It is never anything that I intended,” she read from Butler’s statement. “I'm so sorry for the loss of Ms. Hagerott and for the heartbreak it has left her family and friends, and for the injuries to the juveniles and to Mr. Hagerott.
"The chaos and panic of my truck dying … I remember it like it was yesterday. When someone stopped and said I needed to get out of there, I got in the car with them, leaving the truck. They called 911 as I attempted to arrange a tow. Knowing what I know now, I would do things differently,” Braun read.
At the close of the hearing, Irby accepted the joint plea agreement, which included two years of supervised probation following the 120-day jail sentence with credit for one day served, but left the issue of restitution in the case open for 60 days, and Butler was taken into custody by sheriff’s deputies.
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