More than a year and a half after Christopher M. Barnes was left to die in a ditch on a dark, lonely county road following a hit and run accident, the man alleged responsible was sentenced.
On April 2, in the Randolph County Courthouse, Rufus L. Monroe, 43, of Sparta, received his sentence for the charges of failure to report a crash resulting in a death and a reckless homicide with a motor vehicle. He previously entered an open plea of guilty to these two charges and was out on pretrial release.
According to police reports, on Aug. 11, 2024, Barnes, 32, of New Athens had been operating an electric motorized bicycle on County Road 18 and was involved in a hit and run accident around 11:18 p.m. that night. An investigation found that the vehicle that struck Barnes was a 2019 Chrysler 300 driven by Monroe, who told police that he thought he had struck a deer and left the scene.
For more on this case, please see this week’s print edition.