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Jaden Gibson: It’s been over a year since Gregory Smith, a 47-year-old Mount Pleasant construction worker, was hit by a car and killed by a Ford test vehicle. Still, no charges have been filed in the case. WCMU's AJ Jones spoke with News Director Rick Brewer to explain why...
Rick Brewer: So, AJ, can you give me a brief explanation of the facts in this case?
Alvin Jones: On September 13th, 2024, a 47-year-old construction worker, Gregory Smith, was hit by a car and killed while he was on the job on US-127 going northbound. He was a husband and a father of four.
The car was a test 2025 Ford Bronco that was not available on the market. The car drove through barriers and veered into the clearly marked construction zone with signs. It is not clear why this happened.
We obtained a police report from the Isabella County Sheriff. That's where we're getting a lot of this info from. The car was driven by 66-year-old Wayne Morris Wallace of Detroit, who has not been charged with a crime. He tested negative for drugs and alcohol. None of the other workers on the crew saw the crash. And again, that's according to the police report.
RB: Tell me about this Ford Bronco. You said it was a test vehicle.
AJ: Yeah, so the police report says there were onboard devices that were recording. It's not clear what exactly was being tested on the car.
There was a cord plugged in underneath the dash and one running from the glove box. The latter was labeled “Engineering OBD”, that stands for on-board diagnostics. That's a vehicle self-diagnosis system that identifies issues with a car, among other purposes.
Ford and other car makers will outsource test drives to other companies for the purpose of testing new features. The car was listed in the police report as being insured by the American Road Insurance Agency, which is a subsidiary of Ford.
In addition, the police report also says that a Ford employee on September 16th, 2024, so this was three days after the accident, called and asked about the car. The employee said that he was in the vehicle testing department for Ford and was responsible for post-accident recovery. Again, we should be clear that it is still not certain as to what caused this accident.
RB: This incident happened about a year ago now. Why has it been taking so long to investigate it?
AJ: Well, Rick, there's two reasons. One is, as I said, this was a vehicle that was not on the market and was being tested. The Isabella County Sheriff's Office told me they did not have the technology needed to extract the data from the test vehicle. So, I was told they needed to obtain software updates to investigate the car's crash data. That's similar to a black box on a plane. So, this has like insights on speed, the velocity of the car, for example.
The other reason this is taking so long is low staffing. So, the Isabella County Road Patrol lost 20 positions late last year. It's sort of slowed down their ability to... investigate things.
Eventually, though, the sheriff's office did send the information to the prosecutor, right? This was sent at some point this summer. But Isabella County Sheriff Michael Main told us that the prosecuting office in Isabella County is also, “short-staffed and way behind.”
RB: So, the county prosecutor's office doesn't have enough staff.
AJ: Yeah, that's what we were told. A lot of rural areas in the state actually have a shortage of law enforcement and prosecutor staff. We found a document from 2024 in which the previous Isabella County Prosecutor, David Barbari, asked the county board for another on-call prosecuting attorney.
And in addition, we were told the current prosecutor's office has asked for more staff this year.
Mecosta County is another county that we've reported on that also lacks prosecutorial staff. So, like I said, this is a known issue across a lot of rural areas in the state.
RB: So, AJ, what happens next in this case?
AJ: Well, we're still waiting on the prosecutor's office to make a decision. We've reached out to them a number of times. and do not yet have a response, although eventually we will know they'll make the decision as to whether to press charges or not.
In October 2024, Ford told me “our deepest sympathies go out to those involved. Ford is unable to comment regarding any ongoing investigation.”
RB: AJ Jones, thank you so much for your reporting on this, we appreciate it.
AJ: You're welcome.
