Grandfather pleads no contest after 8-year-old driver dies

TROY, Kan. (AP) — A northeast Kansas man whose 8-year-old granddaughter was killed in a crash as she drove him home from church has pleaded no contest in her death.


The St. Joseph News-Press reports that Dennis Meers, of St. Joseph, entered the plea to an aggravated child endangerment charge last week. Sentencing is set for Feb. 6.

The Kansas Highway Patrol says Cadence Orcutt was killed in November 2015 when the car she was driving plunged down an embankment and overturned in rural Doniphan County. Meers was injured.

Meers previously was sentenced to two years in the Missouri Department of Corrections for felony driving on a revoked license. In 1996 and 2001, Meers was convicted in Missouri on charges of being a persistent offender for driving while intoxicated.