Charges likely against driver who struck and killed Sheffield woman

Sheffield Police Chief Eric Munson Munson said responding officers did not perform a field sobriety test because the driver showed no signs of intoxication. And there is no indication that the driver was distracted by technology.

Sheffield — The identity of the pick-up truck driver who struck and killed 78-year-old Gillian Seidl on Main Street Monday remains a mystery, but troubling details of the tragedy continue to emerge.

In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Sheffield Police Chief Eric Munson declined to release the police report of the crash because it had not yet been completed. Investigating Officer Jake Gonska was off Wednesday, so the report should be completed by Friday or, at the latest, Monday, Munson said. He also insisted the name of the driver would not be released until the report was complete.

Munson estimates the State Police report on the crash will be completed in a month or two, but he added that he’s “99 percent sure” that charges — perhaps serious charges — will be filed against the driver, but added that “we want to make sure all I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed.”

Gillian Seidl
Gillian Seidl

“It’s really a pretty cut-and-dried accident,” Munson said. “The male operator didn’t see her and struck her.”

At about 6:15 p.m. Monday, April 24, Seidl, 78, of Bull Hill Road, was in the Main Street (Route 7) crosswalk near the entrance to the Bushnell-Sage Memorial Library when she was struck by a pickup truck  traveling southbound. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Munson said responding officers did not perform a field sobriety test because the driver showed no signs of intoxication. And there is no indication that the driver was distracted by technology since he had no cell phone either on his person or in the vehicle that the investigating officers could find.

“It’s one of the first things we look for,” Munson said.

Detectives from a Massachusetts State Police accident reconstruction team are investigating. They seized the computer chip from the truck to analyze it for various factors, including the speed at the time of impact. Still, Munson said he has no reason to believe “excessive speed” was a factor in the crash.

Library employee Caitlin Hotaling was one of the first to arrive on the scene and she made the original 911 call. She immediately noted that the truck and its driver were stopped “well past the crosswalk.”

Seidl was headed to the library for a film screening sponsored by the Housatonic Valley Art League, of which she was a longtime member. The library is normally closed on Mondays. On this Monday, the library was being reopened in the evening for the art league event, but the driveway entrance to the library from Route 7 remained closed — roped off by orange traffic cones because the driveway was being repaved.

Seidl was bringing refreshments to the library for the reception preceding the film screening. “She had parked across the street,” Hotaling said.

When Hotaling arrived, bystanders were screaming for someone to call 911, so she obliged. She described the scene as “surreal” because of the frenzied atmosphere and because she knew the victim lying in the road. Hotaling said both the truck and the victim were well to the south of the crosswalk, which indicated to her that the impact had been substantial.

The Sheffield Route 7 crosswalk. Photo: Terry Cowgill
The Sheffield Route 7 crosswalk. Photo: Terry Cowgill

Tim Abbott, a motorist from Canaan, Conn., was traveling home, south on Route 7, and arrived on the scene less than a minute after the crash.

“I was about four cars from the scene,” Abbott told The Edge. “I saw citizens performing CPR. She was lying motionless in the crosswalk.”

Hans Heuberger of the art league also arrived on the scene at about the same time. He had planned to get to the library in advance of the reception to help Seidl set up. He described a scene of chaos, with passersby trying to revive Seidl and “cops and coffee and donuts spilled all over the road.”

Heuberger could not provide a description of the male driver but he said the front end of the gray pick-up had sustained moderate damage.

“The front of the truck didn’t look too good, but I can tell you one thing,” Heuberger said. “She was on the crosswalk [when struck] and her body was easily 40 feet to the south. It must have been one heck of an impact.”

The driver, Heuberger said, “was standing with all these other policeman and answering questions … there is no wiggling out of this one.”

Seidl’s friend Sue MacVeety, a retired teacher at Muddy Brook Elementary School, was on the other side of the road and was an eyewitness to the accident. MacVeety could not be reached for comment.

Munson said the speed limit on that stretch of Main Street is 35 miles per hour but that he would like to see it lowered to 20 or 25.

“No one goes only 35 on Main Street,” agreed Hotaling.

Sheffield Police Chief Eric Munson III.
Sheffield Police Chief Eric Munson III.

Munson explained that, unlike Great Barrington, Sheffield does not own its downtown stretch of Route 7, so any decision regarding speed limits or traffic calming measures would be entirely up to the state, though the town could petition MassDOT for improvements or changes.

“When they redid Route 7 last year, we asked them to change some of the crosswalks,” Munson explained. “They said there were not enough incidents.”

Munson described the site of the crash as an “awful crosswalk” that is sometimes obscured by a nearby utility pole. Hotaling added that most people don’t even know the crosswalk exists. Main Street has three crosswalks within a stretch of only a quarter of a mile but observers say none are adequately marked.

“Thirty-five is a pretty high speed for a road that has that many crosswalks,” Munson continued. “You’d be hard pressed to find another section of Route 7 all the way up to Williamstown has that many [poorly marked] crosswalks.”

As anyone knows who has received a speeding ticket in Egremont, that town has a speed limit of only 25 miles per hour on the state-owned stretch of Routes 23 and 41 that functions as downtown South Egremont’s main street. There are two well-marked crosswalks: one near the post office and another in front of the South Egremont School.

At any rate, the community continues to mourn the loss of one of its most beloved citizens.

“I’m still in shock,” said Seidl’s friend Roselle Chartock of Great Barrington, a colleague from the art league. “The way it happened is beyond belief.”