An Alabama truck driver has pleaded no contest to a charge connected with a crash involving a tractor-trailer and a motorcycle in South Windsor in 2022 that killed a Simsbury man, court officials said.
Alexander J. Harb, 62, appeared Friday in Manchester Superior Court where he pleaded no contest to one count of negligent homicide with a motor vehicle in connection with a crash on Sept. 30, 2022, that killed 24-year-old Nathan Eberly, according to the clerk’s office.
A no-contest plea means he neither admits to nor disputes the allegations. The plea cannot be used to establish guilt or negligence in civil litigation.
Harb was not sentenced during the hearing on Friday. He remains free on a $5,000 non-surety bond and is due back in court on April 5.
“Needless to say, this has been a devastating time for the family and friends of Nathan,” Tim O’Keefe, the lawyer representing Eberly’s family, said in a statement in response to the plea. “Today is just the first step of many in their efforts to seek full accountability and justice for the negligent misconduct that resulted in Nathan’s untimely death.
“In addition to the criminal prosecution of the truck driver, we will be serving and filing a civil lawsuit today against the driver and his employer to make sure the estate is fully and fairly compensated for the wrongs that occurred,” O’Keefe added.
Officers with the South Windsor Police Department responded to the intersection of Route 194 and Rye Street around 3:20 a.m. on Sept. 30, 2022, where they said a subsequent investigation showed that Harb, driving a tractor-trailer, turned left onto Rye in front of Eberly, striking him, according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Eberly — a 2016 graduate of Simsbury High School who attended Central Connecticut State University — was heading west on Route 194 on a 1979 Yamaha motorcycle when he was struck by the tractor-trailer driven by Harb, who police said failed to grant the right of way, according to the affidavit. Eberly was leaving his job at the FedEx on Kennedy Road in South Windsor and was headed to his home in Simsbury, police wrote.
Following the collision, Harb pulled into a gas station before responding officers found Eberly, who was wearing a helmet, suffering from agonal breathing with injuries and no pulse, the affidavit said. He was treated on scene by a paramedic who pronounced him dead shortly after 3:50 a.m., the affidavit said.
Officers on the scene said Harb showed no signs of alcohol or drug use, according to the affidavit.
Dashcam footage from inside the tractor-trailer — which had one camera pointed at Harb and the other toward the road — showed him look down briefly when his GPS instructed him to make a left and then out toward the windshield before looking left, presumably toward Rye Street, police wrote in the affidavit. He then started to make a left turn before looking back out the windshield “with a surprised look,” saying “Oh (expletive),” the affidavit said. Harb can also be heard saying “Oh God, lord,” following the sound of a collision.
According to the warrant affidavit, Eberly had a cell phone mounted to the handlebars of his motorcycle with a navigation app active. Officers inspected the phone and found no signs that he was using the device for any purposes beyond the navigation app.
An autopsy performed on Eberly showed he died of “blunt impact injury of head, neck and torso,” the affidavit said. His death was ruled an accident.
The autopsy also showed Eberly had THC — the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana — and amphetamines in his system, according to the affidavit. Dr. Jessica Gleba, assistant director with the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, Division of Scientific Services, told police the level of THC found in his system “would not be a result of residual effects of the consumption of marijuana,” adding that the level would indicate the THC would be “psychoactive in the body,” police wrote in the affidavit.
Gleba also reportedly told police the level of amphetamines in Eberly’s system “is above what you would expect to see from a normal dose of Adderall,” according to the affidavit. An investigator noted in the affidavit that, based on information from Gleba, he believes Eberly was “under the influence of drugs” during the crash, including “marijuana and amphetamines.”
O’Keefe previously said Eberly “had a valid prescription for all medications in his system at the time he was killed by the trucker.”
Investigators also wrote in the affidavit that Eberly’s license had expired on March 5, 2020, and was suspended as of Sept. 23, 2021, for an operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs charge and suspended as of March 6, 2022, for a violation of failure to appear or pay a fine or fee, the affidavit said. Eberly, the affidavit continued, also had two operating under the influence violations — one in 2018 and another in 2020 — in his motor vehicle history.
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