Thursday, September 02, 1999
Arrest no solace to victim's family
Driver charged in parking-lot death
BY TANYA BRICKING
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Each time Michael Boumer walked in his kitchen and rang the chimes dangling from the light fixture, he would say the same thing: “An angel's got its wings.”
The 37-year-old Elmwood Place man had cerebral palsy and the mental capacity of someone less than half his age. But his family loved the simple things about him, such as the way he'd ride his favorite blue bicycle around town and come home and park it next to his bed.
It was the bike he was riding Aug. 17 when he was struck by a car in the parking lot of a Kroger store in Hartwell. He died the next day.
The family at first thought he had been shot but learned from the coroner's office that the blunt trauma to his head came from being hit by the car.
That car's driver surrendered to Cincinnati police Tuesday night on charges connected to Mr. Boumer's death.
Nicholas “Andy” Mays' mother persuaded him to turn himself in, police said. The 19-year-old Norwood man faces charges of aggravated vehicular homicide and tampering with evidence.
The homicide charge alleges that he recklessly caused Mr. Boumer's death. The tampering-with-evidence charge accuses him of covering up things, including Mr. Boumer's missing bicycle.
Mr. Mays was being held at the Hamilton County jail Wednesday in lieu of $7,000 bond. A grand jury will hear the case by next week to decide on indictments.
But his arrest brings little relief to members of Mr. Boumer's family, who refuse to think the crash was an accident.
“Mike was on a bicycle and was hit by someone who left the scene of the accident without letting anyone know anything,” said Polly Monk, 43, Mr. Boumer's sister-in-law who lived in the same house.
Mr. Mays' family declined to comment.
In Elmwood Place and surrounding neighborhoods, there is a void.
Ms. Monk stared out the window Wednesday and saw a bicycle parked on the sidewalk. It belonged to someone else.
There is a void on the neighborhood basketball court, where Mr. Boumer would play ball with the children, said Josh Harthun, 15, his nephew in Carthage.
Mr. Boumer made Josh sometimes feel like the older one, Josh said.
“Everybody in Carthage used to ride bikes with him,” he said. “All my friends know him.”
There is a void, too, in Mr. Boumer's kitchen.
When she rings the chimes, Ms. Monk says the familiar refrain out loud, thinking of her brother-in-law: An angel's got its wings.
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