A Utah tow truck driver is facing multiple felony charges after failing to safely secure a bulldozer to his flatbed truck, which caused the death of a Utah man and his daughter this summer.
Michael John Love, 52, owner of Love Towing of Marriott-Slaterville, Utah, was traveling east on SR-39 in Ogden Canyon when the bulldozer he was hauling on a flatbed truck broke free, slid off the driver’s side of the vehicle and landed on top of a westbound GMC pickup truck that was towing a boat.
Richard David Hendrickson, 57, and his daughter Sally, 16, of Uintah, Utah, were pronounced dead on the scene, and Hendrickson’s wife and two other children sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Charging documents state that Love failed to properly secure the bulldozer, causing it to fall on the victim’s vehicle.
According to prosecutors, Love claimed “he never left his travel lane, and that the victim’s vehicle left the westbound lane and struck him.” No witness reports were able to corroborate this claim.
Love also told investigators that he secured the dozer properly, alleging that the height of the vehicle's bed combined with the dozer's weight caused the machine to topple.
Reports state that when emergency crews arrived, Love was found near a storage compartment of the flatbed. Love admitted to a Weber County deputy that he “was moving chains.” The officer instructed Love to leave everything in place at the scene of the incident.
Meanwhile, security footage from a gas station a few minutes before the crash shows that the bulldozer was not secured by the “four points of contact” as Love had described.
According to a report from Law & Crime, investigators said it was “clearly visible” that Love had been lying about everything after watching the footage. It was also determined that the 32,000-pound bulldozer was more than 4,000 pounds over the tow truck’s maximum rating.
“The fact that some of Michael Love’s first actions after the crash were to attempt to place more chains into the scene to indicate that bulldozer was secured properly, demonstrates that he knew the bulldozer was not properly secured,” court documents state.
Love was arrested on October 28 and has been charged with felony manslaughter in the second degree, felony aggravated assault and felony obstruction of justice. He is facing a pending second-degree felony theft case and a third-degree felony case for false evidence, according to documents.
