A 21-year-old driver is facing multiple homicide charges nearly five months after Indiana State Police say an accident reconstruction report found his vehicle traveling 124 mph just seconds before a crash that killed a 19-year-old passenger. Hunter Cooper had told deputies he was going about 60 mph when he crested a hill and lost control, but investigators say a different story emerged once crash data was pulled from the vehicle.
The crash happened on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026, around 2:45 p.m., when Cooper's vehicle crossed from Blackford County Road 600 East into Wells County Road 200 West near County Road 1200 South, according to WTHR. As reported by KXII, the vehicle carried two passengers, crossed the center line, crashed into a utility pole, and rolled into a field.
Gavyn D. Orlando, 19, was pronounced dead at the scene. A 2025 graduate of Blackford Junior-Senior High School who played Bruin football and lived in Hartford City, according to an obituary posted on Facebook, Orlando was remembered by his community following the crash. The other passenger, 20-year-old Anthony Dalley of Montpelier, was ejected from the vehicle and taken to a hospital, while Cooper himself was also injured and hospitalized, per KXII's report.
Data Recorder Allegedly Contradicts Driver's Account
According to KXII, Cooper told deputies he was traveling around 60 mph when he drove over a hill and lost control. But Indiana State Police reported that an accident reconstruction analysis found the vehicle had a recorded speed of 124 mph just 2.5 seconds before impact — more than double what Cooper described to investigators. Dalley was transported to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne, the region's major trauma center for surrounding rural counties, according to a report summarized by the Delventhal Law Office.
The law office's summary notes that crash investigators typically rely on event data recorders recovered by Indiana State Police reconstruction teams to establish vehicle speeds in cases where impairment isn't a factor. That appears to be exactly the situation here: a toxicology report found no signs of alcohol or drugs in Cooper's system, according to KXII, leaving prosecutors to build their case around extreme speed rather than intoxication.
Charges and Potential Penalties
Wells County authorities say Cooper faces charges of reckless homicide, involuntary manslaughter, criminal recklessness, and reckless driving. Under Indiana Code § 35-42-1-5, reckless homicide is a Level 5 felony carrying a sentencing range of one to six years in prison, an advisory sentence of three years, and fines up to $10,000, according to Banks & Brower. Involuntary manslaughter is also classified as a Level 5 felony under Indiana Code § 35-42-1-4 when a death results from another unlawful act creating risk of serious bodily injury, per Razumich & Associates.
A Multi-Agency Response on a Rural Road
Seven local and state agencies responded to or investigated the crash, including the Wells County Sheriff's Office, Wells County EMS, Liberty Center Fire/Rescue, Chester Fire, Indiana State Police, the Wells County Coroner, and the Bluffton 911 Center, according to the Mercer County Outlook. The scale of that response reflects a broader pattern in rural crashes, where longer emergency response distances and roads without median barriers or modern safety designs raise the stakes of high-speed driving.
Statewide, the danger isn't isolated. Indiana recorded 928 total traffic fatalities across 217,605 total collisions in 2023, and 249 of those fatalities were speeding-related, according to state data cited by IN.gov. At the same time, Indiana traffic fatalities rose 17 percent between 2019 and 2023 even as speeding citations issued statewide dropped 12 percent, a trend tied in part to law enforcement staffing shortages, according to testimony reported by WFYI.
