INDIANAPOLIS — A man who caused a vehicle crash in which two people died — including a 23-year-old New Palestine High School graduate — has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Dataniel Gilbert was driving drunk on the night of Sept. 30, 2019, when he ran a red light at 38th Street and Keystone Avenue in Indianapolis, prosecutors said. His blue pickup smashed into a car occupied by Delaney Smith Frye, NPHS Class of 2015, and her boyfriend, Nicholas Hatfield, 23, of Evansville.
The couple died from their injuries.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears announced this week Gilbert has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to two counts of failure to remain at the scene of an accident resulting in death — a Level 3 felony. Gilbert was thrown from his vehicle and left the scene on foot despite his injuries, witnesses reported. He later was arrested.
Gilbert’s blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit (0.179) at the time of the crash, officials said in a press release.
After graduating from New Palestine, Frye continued her studies at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She graduated with the highest distinction and a 3.96 GPA in May 2019 and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in public affairs. She majored in law and public policy with minors in environmental science and international and global studies. She was employed at Roche Diagnostics as a contract analyst in the government contracts section.
The Civic Leaders Center for the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington has established a scholarship and possible speakers program in her name, her father, Todd Frye told the Daily Reporter.
“We’re going down in the fall on what would have been her 25th birthday to a dedication of a picture of her that will hang in the (Civic Leaders Center) going forward,” he said.
Hatfield was posthumously awarded his degree December 2020 from Indian Wesleyan in an online ceremony; he was two classes away from getting his degree when he was killed in the crash.
Frye and Hatfield were on their way home after visiting with relatives in New Palestine earlier in the evening on the night the crash occurred.
