A man was sentenced to 20 years after he pled guilty Monday to vehicular homicide in the first degree for the death of his wife.
Joshua Loyd Bruinekool, 45, of Eatonton, was sentenced by Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen A. Bradley to 20 years, with the first 13 years to be served in confinement in a state prison.
The remaining seven years will be served on probation with special conditions, including requirements to submit to a search of person, property, residence, or vehicle at any time; regular alcohol or drug tests; and substance abuse evaluation and treatment.
Throughout his probation, Bruinekool was also banished from all eight counties of the circuit — Baldwin, Greene, Hancock, Jasper, Jones, Morgan, Putnam, and Wilkinson counties.
“And I’ll impose the standard fine – no, I need to increase the fine based on the fact that Mr. Bruinekool has stretched the resources unnecessarily of the county as well as all the agencies involved,” Bradley said at the sentencing. “I impose a $5,000 fine plus all relevant statutory add-ons.
The increased fine was due to Chief Assistant District Attorney Allison T. Mauldin offering Bruinekool at least three opportunities to plead guilty, but he did not do so.
“It was tragic for everyone involved because the accident was entirely preventable, and he could’ve accepted responsibility long ago,” Mauldin said. “Then the victim’s family wouldn’t have to endure all this. Her sister is six months pregnant and very, very distraught. This has caused her a lot of stress.”
Bruinekool did not enter his guilty plea until the start of his trial on Monday. By then, the entire jury pool had been summoned.
According to court records, the chosen jurors were asked to leave the courtroom when defense attorney Dexter Wimbish of Griffin said his client wanted to plead guilty.
The fatal vehicle crash happened on Harmony Road around 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 13. Bruinekool’s wife, Jessica Shawn Walton, 43, was killed when the Dodge Dakota pickup she was traveling in went off the road, crashed into a tree and turned over on its side, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said at the time.
Bruinekool, Walton, and a friend, Justin Jay Harvey, 35, were the three people in the truck. Harvey and Bruinekool were flown by medical helicopter from the scene to Atrium Health Navicent Medical Center in Macon.
Bruinekool had told passersby who stopped to help that his wife was driving.
“Yet she was sitting right beside him, seat belted in the middle seat, and the other passenger was there,” Mauldin said. “He didn’t express sorrow that she was dead or ask the passersby to check the other passenger, none of that. He just said it wasn’t his fault.”
The passenger, Harvey, suffered a skull fracture, broken neck and brain injury and remained in the hospital a while, according to court records.
Bruinekool was released from the hospital the next day.
Originally, Bruinekool also faced charges of habitual violators and making false statements, but those charges were dropped at the time of the plea.
Part of the evidence submitted in court were court records of convictions or guilty pleas from several Georgia counties, Texas, and Tennessee, plus his 10-page driver’s license record, which revealed at least 20 years’ worth of driving under the influence and other violations.
Mauldin said his driver’s license was revoked in 2004, and he never had it renewed after that. So, at the time of the wreck that killed his wife, he was driving unlicensed.
Wimbish said in court that Bruinekool may not have pled guilty earlier because Wimbish “may have failed to convey one of the plea adequately offers from the State.”
“But in terms of what the State has presented, you really can’t argue the past,” Wimbish added.
Regarding video footage from a restaurant before the wreck, Wimbish said, “They’d all been drinking at some point that day and should have never left home, but they did. And he’s ready to take responsibility for those actions.”
After imposing the sentence, Judge Bradley spoke these final words to Bruinekool: “Mr. Wimbish has done an excellent job on your behalf, doing everything he can to soften the blow to you, Mr. Bruinekool. Unfortunately, you have proven yourself to be exactly the sort of threat that we are quite concerned about on our roads, and sadly, that threat has cost at least one woman her life and another person a significant head injury. I hope that when you get out of prison, that you will have reformed at least some.”