Ex-golf pro gets 28 years for high-speed, drunken fatal crash

Judge gives Brent Wills two years shy of the max for crash that killed two, injured another coming home from a birthday dinner. Wills: ‘I accept full responsibility with no excuse.'

Brent Wills is escorted from a Tippecanoe County courtroom after sentencing Monday. (Photo: Dave Bangert)

Brent Wills, former golf pro and manager at Coyote Crossing Golf Club in West Lafayette, apologized in a Tippecanoe County courtroom Monday to families of two people he killed and another he injured, saying he had no excuse when he sped through a stop sign at 62 mph after a day of drinking that put him three times over the legal limit to drive.

Tippecanoe Superior 2 Judge Steven Meyer said he found Wills sincerely remorseful for what he did Sept. 18, 2023, when he drove an SUV owned by the golf course through a U.S. 52 and County Road 400 West intersection, T-boning the car of Kimberly Burge, who was driving her son, Rylan, and his friend Jaden Harvey home to Oxford from a 17^th birthday dinner for Rylan.

But Meyer said the remorse – even coupled with Wills’ straight-up, no-deal guilty plea in the deaths of Kimberly Burge and Harvey and nearly killing Rylan Burge and a stack of letters of support from what the judge said included former local elected officials and others connected in the community – wasn’t enough to erase how many chances Wills had to step back during a drunken golf outing to Indianapolis that turned fatal.

“That cannot be overlooked,” Meyer said.

Meyer sentenced Wills on Monday afternoon to 28 years, two years shy of the 30-year maximum for the three counts.

The sentence included 24 years in prison, two years on community corrections and two years of supervised probation. Wills also will be ineligible to get a driver’s license for 10 years once he’s released from the Department of Corrections.

“It’s not what I wanted,” Erik Harvey, Jaden’s father, said after a sentencing hearing that packed the Superior Court 2 courtroom and had more than a dozen people waiting in the rotunda just outside.

“I want my son back, but I know that’s not going to happen,” Erik Harvey said. “But it went better than I expected. … I think this is the start of the healing, maybe.”