Conrad ordered to stand trial on vehicular assault charges

Timothy Conrad, the Jackson man who police say tried to convince them he wasn't the driver in a December accident that injured his friends, was ordered by a judge on Thursday to stand trial.

Judge Gary Kamp bound Conrad over to circuit court after Conrad waived his right to a preliminary hearing Thursday morning. Conrad is set to appear before Judge William Syler on March 11.

Conrad is charged with three counts of vehicular assault, felonies that each carry a maximum seven-year prison sentence. The three counts filed by prosecutors account for each of the three people who were injured in the Dec. 8 crash. Police say the wreck happened as the four friends were heading home after a night of drinking. The 2004 BMW ran off a rural county road, overturned and slammed into a tree.

Initial reports listed Conrad as a passenger after emergency responders pulled Conrad out of the back seat of the mangled vehicle. Conrad's friend, James Flesher, initially was charged as being the driver in the wreck that seriously hurt two women in the car -- Lauren Timpe and Kaylie Van Troba. Timpe required 150 stitches to her face, and Van Troba remains hospitalized in St. Louis, where she has been placed in a medically induced coma.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol investigated further and found what they describe in court papers as inconsistencies in Conrad's story. At one point after the accident, court papers say, Conrad left of the driver's seat and crawled in the back seat. He also, according to Timpe and Flesher, told the 911 operator that the driver was a she. But his injuries were not consistent with being a passenger, and Flesher and Timpe were insistent that Conrad was the driver.

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