By Mark Hansel
NKyTribune managing editor
Daniel Edward Greis formally pleaded not guilty in a Kenton County courtroom Monday.
Daniel Edward Greis (white shirt, in wheelchair) enters the courtroom Monday. Greis pleaded not guilty to five counts of murder in a crash that killed five members of a family on their way to buy Halloween costumes in October. Police say Greis was drunk and was traveling 96 miles an hour at the time of the crash (photos by Mark Hansel).
Greis, of Independence, was indicted in December on five counts of Murder in connection with an October 26, crash that killed Rodney Pollitt, 26, Samantha Malohn, 27, Hailieann Pollitt, 9, Brenden Pollitt, 8, and Cailie Pollitt, 6, all of Dry Ridge.
The crash occurred on Staffordsburg Road in Southern Kenton County.
Greis, who was injured in the crash, was expected to enter a plea on January 9, but inclement weather prevented his transport from the Kentucky State Reformatory. At that hearing, Kenton Circuit Judge Patricia Summe denied a request by Greis’s attorney to lower his $1 million bond.
Greis, 57, made his first court appearance in November on a hospital bed. He entered the courtroom in a wheelchair Monday.
Kenton Commonwealth Attorney Rob Sanders said he is still waiting on some of the evidence, including a final crash report and blood tests, which he will turn over to defense attorneys upon receipt. The testing is not expected to delay the beginning of the trial which is scheduled for June 19.
Police say Greis was driving drunk at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour when his car crossed the center line and struck the Pollitt family’s car in October.
The family was headed to buy Halloween costumes.
Vivian Cooper, grandmother of Samantha Malohn and great-grandmother of the children that were killed, said she had hoped Greis would plead guilty and “not put us through this nightmare anymore.”
“That’s five lives he took,” she said.
Cooper, who was picking out headstones on Sunday, said she will be in the courtroom at every hearing and the trial, until a verdict is reached, because she doesn’t want the family to think she is forgetting about them.
“I may have to leave the room if they do pictures and that,” Cooper said. “Hopefully it won’t go that far with everything they have against him. My gosh, what was he doing, driving 96 miles an hour.”
Cooper, who choked back tears as she spoke to reporters, said she met with Rodney Pollitt’s father to sign the paperwork for the headstones Sunday.
Samantha Malohn’s grandmother Vivian Cooper and Dale Adams, Malohn’s grandfather, talked to reporters after Monday’s hearing. Cooper said what happened to the family is “a nightmare.”
“(We talk about) just how hurt we are,” Cooper said. “He wants pictures, we want pictures, it’s just horrible.”
Dale Adams, Samantha Malohn’s grandfather, said he wouldn’t want to be in Greis’s shoes, but he does feel sympathy toward him.
“We’ll never get to see Samantha and Rodney and the babies again,” Abrams said. “The whole family is suffering. I believe in the justice system and that everything will turn out alright. I hate to see the man be punished, but the fact is, he made the choice of getting in that car and driving the way he did.”
At a November press conference, Sanders praised law enforcement officers for their investigation of the incident and said the circumstances warranted the murder charges.
“This has been a very emotional case for everyone involved,” Sanders said then. “There has not been a crash with this loss of life in all the time I have practiced law. Five innocent lives were lost. . . Kenton County police have been on top of this investigation, working non-stop.”
Greis faces 20-50 years in prison on each murder charge, if convicted.
Contact Mark Hansel at mark.hansel@nkytrib.com
