Iowan who killed woman 10 years ago reaches plea deal

A central Iowa man could walk free as early as this week after reaching a plea deal for the hit-and-run accident in which he killed a Des Moines woman nearly a decade ago.

Jonathan Quincy Adams, 46, of Saylor Township, reached a deal with Polk County prosecutors Monday. He will be sentenced to 10 years in jail for vehicular homicide.

However, Adams has already spent seven years in jail since first being convicted in 2008. He was released in August 2015 when his conviction was overturned by the Iowa Court of Appeals. His new trial was set to begin later this month.

With time served he could be free again within days.

“We do not expect him to spend much more time in prison,” Assistant Polk County Attorney Jim Ward said.

Adams struck Tina Marie Brown, then 36, from behind as she rode her bicycle home from a friend's house on Dec. 8, 2006. Adams had been drinking and his level of intoxication became a key point in multiple trials. He did not stop to assist Brown after the crash.

Brown lay in the street for an unknown amount of time before a passer-by called police. The incident happened in the 1500 block of Southeast Park Avenue.

In court on Monday, Adams turned to his victim's family members and apologized.

“He genuinely apologized,” Brown's daughter Jadi Wright said. “That’s something I’ve honestly wanted since day one.” Wright was 19 when her mother was killed.

Police received a tip two days after the accident. Investigators located a vehicle, a maroon 1996 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, in a parking lot at Southeast Eighth and Broad streets. The vehicle had extensive front-end and windshield damage on the passenger side. It was covered with a tarp, a police spokesman told the Register at the time.

Adams voluntarily submitted to an interview with police, after which he was arrested.

He was charged in January 2007 with vehicular homicide, operating while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident. A jury found him guilty of all three counts in February 2008. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to Brown's family.

According to court documents, Adams told police he was looking down at his car radio and did not see what he had struck. A friend who was in the car with him said he also did not see the impact, court documents say.

The pair were leaving a party where they had been drinking.

Adams appealed his case to the Iowa Supreme Court on grounds that his lawyer failed to challenge whether his level of intoxication was the cause of Brown's death, rather than some other circumstance. The "intervening circumstance" could have been anything from having a headlight out, to speeding, to reckless driving, said his current defense attorney, Alfredo Parrish.

Court documents say the right headlight of Adams' car was out at the time of the collision.

"You couldn't say just because someone was drinking they could be convicted of the crime," Parrish said. "His lawyer hadn’t told the jury that."

Adams was ordered to be retried. He again was found guilty in March 2012 of homicide by vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident. The OWI charge was dropped. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and given the same $150,000 restitution order.

Adams again fought the conviction, and the appeals court later reversed it. This week's plea deal changed his conviction to vehicular homicide by reckless driving.

“He was sentenced to a plea deal that fit the facts and was appropriate under the circumstances,” Ward said.

Wright, said her family is relieved to be done with the process, but doesn't feel that justice was served.

“I would have liked to have seen him do more time,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter if he spends the rest of his life in prison or a day in prison, it’s not going to bring my mom back.”

She plans to talk with Adams through the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program. She wants more than an apology. She wants an answer.

“I would like to hear from him not just an apology, but I would really like to know why he left her there,” she said. “I would really like to know why she had to die by herself.”

Adams’ mother died while he was in prison. Wright said she sent condolences in her victim impact letter, “because I know that the loss of your mother is something you can’t describe.”

“I wasn’t able to be there when my mother was laying and dying on the road,” she said. “I wouldn’t wish that on him or anyone.”