LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. — A father of eight, who planned to propose to his longtime girlfriend, was killed in a fiery crash with a suspected drunk driver earlier this month. And while his children grieve the loss of a parent, the other driver is out on bond.
"I'm angry, I'm hurt every day because I'll never hear his voice again," Kieanna Brooks, Kevin Daniels' partner, said. "I'll never see him again."
The Jackson County Prosecutor's Office announced on Tuesday charges in Daniels' death. Joseph A. Cook, 34, faces a charge of DWI - death of another not a passenger, a Class B felony and could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
"My son is asking for his daddy, and my son is talking to the sky just to talk to his daddy," Brooks said. "But this other family, they get to talk to him. They get to hug him. They get to talk to him. They get to do all of this, and it's not fair."
It's that anguish Brooks said she feels after losing her almost-fiancé after a suspected drunk driver slammed into him.
"He took my future," Brooks said. "He took my son's future. He took Kevin's other kids' futures like he took all of our future with him."
On March 6, Daniels was heading to a coworker's birthday dinner going west on Highway 50 through Lee's Summit.
At the same time, people were calling 911 about another driver going the wrong way.
"I started flashing my light repeatedly to try and get his attention," Bryan Ladd, a witness, told 41 Action News. "My wife started trying to call 911 and she couldn't get ahold of them.
"I watched in the mirror as he went by, you know, with the hopes that he would actually just go ahead and turn around or pull over to the side of the road. And I didn't see one single brake light, not one brake light and he just went up over the curve."
Lee's Summit Police said Cook collided head-on with Daniels on 50 Highway and Northwest Chipman Road.
"I don't believe either of the men knew what hit them," Amie Ladd, another witness, said. "There was a hill and neither one of them would have seen each other."
Charging documents state that Cook told first responders in slurred speech that he was coming from a bar.
The prosecutor's office said Cook's blood-alcohol level was .261, more than three times the legal limit.
"Somebody at that bar seen him [and knew] how drunk he was," Brooks said. "And why didn't they stop him?"
Daniels' family has created a GoFundMe to assist with expenses.
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