Man Sentenced For Vehicular Manslaughter Victim Run Over For Still Unknown Reasons

Daniel J. Bonin wasn’t the victim of any run-of-the-mill car accident.

Perhaps it was a car ride that went awry. A drug deal or a robbery. Or a deadly gay-bashing incident.

Any number of scenarios might explain how the 33-year-old Kansas City man wound up dead, his body crushed by a car running over him, on a Rathdrum Prairie dirt road Feb. 11.

“There are some pieces in this puzzle that are not easy to fit,” said First District Judge Gary Haman as he closed the case of Bonin’s death Tuesday.

Haman sentenced Hayden resident Frederick “Rick” Donohoe, 38, to 10 years in prison for vehicular manslaughter - the maximum sentence possible for the charge.

Donohoe, who pleaded guilty to the charge but insisted the death was an accident, will be eligible for parole in five years.

Haman was not swayed by Donohoe’s tearful mother, who uses a respirator. She swore that her son was doing nothing but giving a stranger a ride home when the “tragic accident” occurred.

Although Donohoe was prosecuted under a charge normally reserved for traffic deaths, Haman said aspects of the case suggested that murder might have been a more appropriate charge.

“This isn’t the ordinary vehicular manslaughter case,” he said. “It has so many overtones that shade into something other, more serious.”

When Haman dropped his gavel, Bonin’s brothers, sisters and father hugged each other and cried in relief.

“Considering what we had to work with, we’re pleased,” said Michael Bonin, one of the victim’s brothers. “It should have been second-degree murder. It was mishandled by all parties.”

At the time of the February accident, the seven siblings were gathered at their parents’ Hayden home to say goodbye to their mother, who was dying of cancer. Daniel Bonin, considered his mother’s favorite son, disappeared Feb. 11 after taking his turn at her bedside, according to family members.

Bonin apparently went to nearby Pub 95 where he met Donohoe. Though Donohoe claimed that the grieving Bonin befriended him and asked him for a ride, Bonin’s family suspects Donohoe was out to rob Bonin.

“The whole thing was a robbery that went haywire,” said Walter Bonin, the victim’s father.

Two years ago, Donohoe was charged with first degree robbery and first degree burglary in Spokane after he and another man broke into an apartment wielding handguns. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree criminal assistance.

Donohoe claimed that Bonin made a sexual pass at him, so he made him get out of the car. Family members vigorously deny any suggestion that Bonin was homosexual. Donohoe said Bonin then slipped or jumped out in front of Donohoe’s speeding vehicle, an explanation Haman found unlikely.

After hitting Bonin, Donohoe admitted backing over him, and later getting a friend to help him hide the body in the nearby brush.

Donohoe said the reason they drove to a remote corner of the prairie, six miles from Hayden, was so Bonin could do drugs - another claim that made Bonin’s relatives roll their eyes with skepticism.

Daniel Bonin had just cashed a paycheck and flashed his cash in the bar.

County prosecutor Bill Douglas agreed with the robbery theory, but said it fell short because Bonin still had money on him when his body was found.

Other evidence for the murder charge was scanty, Douglas said.

“We can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” he said.

Some family members were upset with the plea bargain that resulted in the state dropping the murder charge for a guilty plea to vehicular manslaughter.

But after the sentence was announced, they said they were thankful for Haman’s thorough study of the case.

“Now the family can start grieving and healing,” said Bonin’s sister, Jeanne Paradis.

Less than two hours after they learned of Daniel Bonin’s death, Barbara Bonin, his mother, died of cancer.

, DataTimes