Aaron Michael Magee, 35, Knightstown
HANCOCK COUNTY — It’s been just over a year since a Markleville boy was struck by a vehicle and left on a county road by the driver, Aaron M. McGee. While the child has since made a miraculous recovery, at the time of the crash the child’s injuries were considered catastrophic, “near fatal,” when McGee hit the boy and took off.
Following a two-week investigation by officials from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, McGee, 45, Knightstown, was arrested and charged with a Level 4 felony count of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death or catastrophic injury. McGee was given a $25,000 cash bond at the time, but the court lowered the bond a few months later. Then after the trial, which was to take place this summer in June, was delayed a few weeks ago, McGee bonded out of jail and is now home.
The bond reduction concerns prosecutor Brent Eaton, who says the $25,000 cash bond set by Senior Judge Terry Snow in Hancock County Circuit Court back in June of 2023 should have never been reduced from the original figure.
Just two months later in August of 2023 the court’s regular judge, Scott Sirk held a bail review hearing and lowered the bond to $2,000 cash and a $20,000 surety bond ($2,000) for a $4,000 total.
The defendant then came back in December of 2023 and asked for another bond reduction which the court denied. In March of this year, the prosecutor’s office filed documents indicating McGee was a habitual offender and that status needed to be added to his court records.
McGee remained in jail until last week, July 1 when the cash and surety bonds were posted. This came after a jury trial slated for June 14 of this year was postponed at the request of the defense, moving the trial to Tuesday, Oct. 15.
“We went from having a $25,000 cash bond to a $4,000 cash bond drop in a couple of months,” Eaton said. “That should not have happened.”
While court officials don’t comment on pending cases, in general Sirk is on record as saying in the past that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty and that’s why bonds are sometimes lowered. Eaton, however, doesn’t see this case that way.
“We know all defendants have a right to bond, but we feel like the public has a right to be protected too and in this case we felt the courts original ruling of $25,000 was appropriate,” Eaton said. “We were very disappointed when the figure went down and we’re confused because there was no substantial change in those two months that caused the figure to go down.”
McGee has been accused of striking Jasper Young, who was 13 at the time, when the boy was riding his bicycle in the 500 block of Main Street in Wilkinson before leaving Jasper in the road unattended. Jasper was flown by a StatFlight helicopter to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital where he remained in critical condition for days as doctors worked to get him stabilized.
McGee was arrested two weeks after the incident following an investigation after a witness, who stopped and immediately helped Jasper, was able to identify the vehicle involved in the hit and run. McGee, officials said in a report at first denied he was involved in hitting and then leaving the boy, saying he had hit a deer after the vehicle was found in a garage in Anderson.
“The part that bothers me the most is when the judge made the ruling to lower the bond, the case wasn’t even 60 days old and the ink wasn’t even dry on it, and now he’s out, and while we respect the court’s decision, we’re very disappointed he’s out,” Eaton said. “The family is not happy about this either, and I can’t blame them.”
