A man who called himself Dickey’s friend said she’d gone through a tough breakup and that Dickey had “a little bit to drink” when she was with him on Wednesday night.
“She always made everyone smile, always laughing and having a good time,” said Dustin Smith, who said he worked with Dickey at Komyo Logistics in Troy. “I know there was some things she was kind of trying to sort out. She had just started to kind of get her life back on track.”
Duchak said preliminary investigation shows the bus driver was going about 45 mph and tried to evade the Cavalier, but that the Cavalier didn’t make any evasive maneuvers after it crossed the center line on Ohio 55 and Kessler-Frederick Road in Union Twp. in Miami County.
“There was literally nothing she could have done to prevented this,” Duchak said of bus driver Dee Kauffman. “Deputies talked to her for a short while, a very short while at the scene yesterday. She’s very shaken up, obviously, as any of us would be.”
Duchak said the car’s computer will be analyzed to see how fast the car was going and if the car had any mechanical defects.
“There was so much catastrophic damage to the car,” he said. “They’ll do with what they can, but there was so much damage, we don’t know what they’ll be able to check and not.”
The investigation also will try to decipher what was going on in Dickey’s life. Duchak said Dickey may have been on her way to a rural Darke County location.
“We do have at least one witness who reported the vehicle driving somewhat erratically on the outskirts of Troy,” Duchak said, adding that a driver said they saw the Cavalier “driving very slowly to the point that she passed it. Later on, she believes the same vehicle passed her at a very high rate of speed.”
Duchak said Dickey’s family was in Troy to help investigators.
“They’re going through a terrible time as one can imagine,” he said. “We’re wanting to be supportive of them and let them know everything that we know that’s going on. Obviously, we’re hoping they’ll be able to help fill in some of the blanks for us as well.”
Kelsey Kleinkopf, who used to date Dickey, said Dickey helped her through a dark part of her life.
“She was the kind of person, that when you first met her, the room lit up,” Kleinkopf said. “She’d instantly put a smile on your face.”
Kleinkopf said Dickey, a 2012 Troy High School graduate, worked with the mentally and physically disabled and that she was kind, compassionate and loving.
“She’d have never hurt anyone,” Kleinkopf said. “And I’m sure if she was alive … She would be so so sorry.”
Clergy and counselors were at Milton-Union High School again on Friday comforting students.
“They don’t hesitate to take a student out of class and say are you okay? Is there anything you want to talk about?”, said the Rev. Tim Benkert, of Hoffman United Methodist Church.
Benkert said he’s been at the school for a few hours each day.
“Each of the students we talked to talked about how their immediate concern was for the other kids on the bus.”
Benkert said the situation affected his own son who is in sixth grade. He had a friend on the bus and was relieved when he learned he was OK.
“He said, ‘Nate!’ He was very excited. Very relieved.”
Staff Writer Andy Sedlak contributed to this story.
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