Bail set with $5,000 signature bond for Chetek woman charged with homicide in Hwy. 25 crash
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — Bail has been set with a $5,000 signature bond for a 56-year-old Chetek woman charged with homicide by the negligent operation of a motor vehicle in connection with a head-on collision on state Highway 25 in February.
Barbara Jean McLennan made an initial appearance in Dunn County Circuit Court April 9 with attorney Christopher Wilhelm before Judge Christina M. Mayer.
McLennan is charged with one felony county of homicide by the negligent operation of a vehicle in connection with the death of Tony Swanson, age 57, of Boyceville, in a two-vehicle crash on state Highway 25 just north of Menomonie on Sunday, February 25, near county Highway F and Highway BB.
Online court records list McLennan’s attorney as Michael R. Cohen.
Dunn County Assistant District Attorney Megan E. Kelly asked the court to set bail with a $5,000 signature bond, and the court ordered a $5,000 signature bond as bail for McLennan.
McLennan is scheduled for another court appearance June 27.
According to the criminal complaint, a trooper with the Wisconsin State Patrol responded to a two-vehicle crash at shortly before 1 p.m. February 25.
When the trooper arrived, the Menomonie Fire Department had responded to the scene, and firefighters were blocking traffic on Highway 25 because a maroon Ford F150 pickup truck and a sedan, a gray Pontiac Bonneville, both with severe front-end damage, were positioned across both lanes of traffic, according to the criminal complaint.
When the trooper approached the crash scene, fire department personnel informed him that the man driving the sedan had sustained fatal injuries.
After speaking with other law enforcement officers, fire department personnel, and witnesses on the scene, the trooper concluded that the pickup truck driver had crossed over the center line, traveling southbound in the northbound lane, the criminal complaint states.
McLennan told the trooper she had been driving south on Highway 25 and was approaching Highway BB when three vehicles had pulled out onto Highway 25, also headed south, and said she had been going 49 miles per hour at the time.
McLennan said when she pulled out to pass, she saw the northbound vehicle and slammed on her brakes and told the trooper she did not think the driver of the Pontiac had even seen her and that she had not observed him slowing down.
The trooper asked if anything had interfered with her view, and she said that nothing had interfered with her view, the criminal complaint states.
When the trooper asked McLennan why the crash had happened, she said she was going to pass the vehicles ahead of her and that the other vehicles were “not up to speed,” according to the criminal complaint.
