More than a year after 36-year-old Antonio Conrad was struck and killed while helping a stranded driver on the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, a Campbell County grand jury has indicted the man accused of hitting him. John K. Ray now faces a reckless homicide charge tied to the July 2025 crash, and he is scheduled to be arraigned in Campbell County Court on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
Newport Police say the crash unfolded around 3:40 a.m. on Sunday, July 6, 2025, when Conrad pulled over behind a broken-down car in the far-right northbound lane of Interstate 471 on the bridge, commonly known as the Big Mac Bridge, and was physically pushing the disabled vehicle when another car slammed into his stopped car from behind, according to WLWT. Conrad's vehicle had its hazard lights on at the time, and the driver who struck it stayed at the scene, per Newport Police. Conrad was a father of six and a grandfather from Newport, and he died from his injuries shortly after being taken to the hospital.
Conrad's fiancée was riding in the passenger seat of his car when it was hit and suffered serious injuries, according to the outlet's report. She underwent multiple surgeries and physical therapy afterward and is still recovering from her injuries more than a year later.
Family Reacts to Long-Awaited Charges
Conrad's mother, Silver Conrad, said the indictment marks the beginning of closure for her family after more than a year of waiting, and she said she has wondered why Ray had not been arrested sooner. Anieya Phillips, Conrad's eldest daughter, and other relatives plan to attend Ray's arraignment this week. A family friend, Sienna Thompson, said the driver should have been able to avoid the crash.
Ray is charged with reckless homicide, a charge that concerns the crash that killed Conrad while he was assisting a stranded driver whose vehicle had broken down. Under Kentucky Revised Statutes 507.050, reckless homicide is a Class D felony, the lowest tier of felony offense in the state, carrying a potential sentence of one to five years in prison and fines between $1,000 and $10,000 upon conviction, according to the Baldani Law Group. The charge requires prosecutors to prove gross recklessness rather than intentional harm.
A Law Meant to Protect Drivers Like Conrad
Kentucky's expanded Slow Down, Move Over law, which took effect in July 2024, requires drivers to yield, change lanes, or slow down when approaching disabled vehicles displaying hazard flashers on roadside lanes and shoulders, per Cooper and Friedman. Separately, Kentucky's Move Over law under KRS 189.930 carries penalties of up to 30 days in jail and fines between $60 and $500 for drivers who fail to yield to stopped roadside vehicles, according to the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety.
The danger Conrad faced is far from rare nationally. A January 2024 study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that 123 roadside assistance providers were struck and killed by vehicles across the country between 2015 and 2021, a toll nearly four times higher than federal crash data had previously indicated, with 89 percent of those fatal crashes happening on roads with speed limits of 55 mph or higher. NHTSA data from 2024 also shows that 76 percent of pedestrian traffic fatalities nationwide occur after dark, and 73 percent happen away from intersections, on stretches like the open highway corridor where Conrad was struck before dawn.
A Bridge With a Troubled Recent History
The Daniel Carter Beard Bridge is an eight-lane steel arch span carrying Interstate 471 across the Ohio River between downtown Cincinnati and Newport. The bridge had already drawn scrutiny in the months before Conrad's death: between November 2024 and March 2025, it underwent emergency structural repairs costing over $10 million after a fire beneath its Ohio approach severed southbound travel, a disruption Hoodline traced to an arson case tied to four defendants.
Funeral services for Conrad were held in July 2025 through Walker Funeral Home, which described him as a Northern Kentucky native. As Ray's arraignment approaches this week, Conrad's family says the indictment does not erase what they lost, but it gives them a path toward the accountability they have sought since the early morning crash on the bridge more than a year ago.
