Prosecutor Donald L. Brunner said this afternoon he will call the Shelby County grand jury to meet soon, and he said he would ask the jury to consider returning an indictment against Charles M. Bennett for reckless homicide in the traffic death of Mrs. Mellie Shaw.
Shelby county recorded its sixth traffic fatality of 1953 today with the death this morning of Mrs. Mellie Shaw, 78, of Noble township, who died at the Major Hospital after being injured July 17 in a car-truck collision on south State Road 9 three miles from the city.
Meanwhile Charles M. Bennett, 35, Shelbyville, RR3, arrested and charged with drunken driving in the accident, filed another motion yesterday seeking to quash the affidavit against him, after being granted a motion for continuance of the case July 18. Another drunken driving charge is still pending against the defendant from last October.
Mrs. Shaw, who suffered shock and multiple fractures of the right arm and clavicle in the accident, died at 3:30 a.m. today.
She was a passenger in a 1948 Dodge coach owned and driven by her daughter Mrs. Cleo (Sallie) Hook, 49, Flat Rock, R.R.1, who received cuts and bruises in the accident.
The Hook car was in collision with a 1950 Dodge pick-up truck owned and driven by Bennett, authorities said, and loss to each vehicle was set at $700.
State police at the time said the truck attempted to pass another car and both the truck and on-coming Hook car apparently went to the left to avoid a crash but were unable to do so, with the right front of the truck smashing the right side of the car.
Bennett escaped serious injury in the crash as did Carl E. Cowin, 48, R.R.4, who also was in the Bennett truck. Cowin, arrested for public intoxication, was fined $5 and costs in the JP court that same night after the accident, which occurred about 3:45 p.m.
Bennett, charged with drunken driving, was granted a continuance in the city court the next day until July 28 and released on $1,000 bond. Yesterday, July 28, his attorney H. Harold Soshnick filed another motion to quash the affidavit and now this motion is to be heard later.
Police records show Bennett was arrested here last October for drunken driving, after which attorney Soshnick then filed a motion for a continuance which was granted, and then in November filed a motion to quash this drunken driving charge. This case is still pending in city court almost a year after, along with the present case, a check of the records showed today.
Mrs. Shaw was born in Noble township on October 21, 1874, the daughter of Marshall L. and Sallie (Shirley) Phillippe. In December 1894, she was married to Claude Shaw, who preceded her in death in 1947. Two children were born to the union and one survives, the daughter, Mrs. Hook, of Noble township. Also surviving are three grandchildren, Mrs. David Snyder and Mrs. Carl Ellington of this city and Mrs. Ralph Bentley of San Antonio, Texas. There are three grandchildren.
Mrs. Shaw was a member of the Pleasant Grove Church of Christ. Funeral services, in charge of the Norman Funeral Home of Hope, will be held Friday at 2:00 p.m. at the Pleasant Grove Separate Baptist Church. Interment will be in the church cemetery. Friends may call at the late home in Noble township after 2:00 p.m. Thursday.
The Shelbyville News, July 29, 1953
Contributed by: Shelli Steedman
