The driver in the only fatal Gardnerville collision in 2023 was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail after he admitted to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.
The man responsible for the 2021 Sportsman’s Warehouse crash that injured a half-dozen people, is serving a jail sentence after he admitted Wednesday to one count of vehicular manslaughter in the March 2023 death of Gardnerville resident Joyce Chambers.
Ronald David Wilkerson, 70, was remanded into custody after entering a guilty plea to the misdemeanor charge in East Fork Justice Court.
The sentence included 30 days active jail time with time served and 150 days suspended for two years on condition that Wilkerson pays $1,200 in fines and fees and does not drive.
Wilkerson was driving south on Highway 395 on March 6, 2023, near Service Drive in Gardnerville when witnesses said his 2021 Prius started to drift across the northbound lanes and over the sidewalk at 65 mph, according to the Nevada Highway Patrol report.
According to the investigation, the Prius hit a traffic sign and a tree and then rotated until the right side struck a power pole, killing Chambers.
Wilkerson was still on probation at the time of the collision for the Jan. 15, 2021, incident where he drove a white Prius into the Carson City’s Sportsman’s Warehouse.
Because he’d received just six month’s probation at his Jan. 24, 2023, sentencing for felony disregarding safety resulting in death or bodily harm, Wilkerson managed to avoid violating his probation, even though the collision occurred before it expired.
The investigation into the collision wasn’t complete until late last year by which time he was off probation. His license had been reinstated just three weeks before the collision on Feb. 16, 2023.
According to his driving history, Wilkerson rear-ended a dump truck on Jan. 23, 2018, and ran off the highway and hit a power pole on Aug. 23, 2020.
He told a Reno television station that the Sportsman’s Warehouse collision happened when he suffered a seizure after he left the Department of Motor Vehicles where his driver’s license was suspended.
