Alexa Stakely and Gerald Dowling only crossed paths for about 45 seconds, but those seconds ended with Stakely dying while trying to save her son, and Dowling spending up to a decade in prison.
Stakely, a 29-year-old elementary school speech pathologist, died on July 11, 2024. She was run over by her own car after she jumped on the hood to prevent it from being stolen with her 6-year-old son inside.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Chris Brown sentenced Dowling, 20, to seven to 10.5 years in prison during an Aug. 7 hearing. The judge said he would consider releasing Dowling from prison early after he serves five years, the minimum time required for eligibility for judicial release.
Dowling pleaded guilty on July 10 to involuntary manslaughter in Stakely’s death.
Dowling and two 16-year-olds tried to steal Stakely’s Honda C-RV around 1:25 a.m. Stakely was picking her son up from a babysitter, where he had been while Stakely worked a second job as a waitress, according to police. She worked as a speech pathologist for Winchester Trail Elementary School.
Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Jeff Zezech said Stakely took her sleeping son to the car and realized she’d forgotten something inside the babysitter’s home. Stakely went back to the house to get the item, taking about 45 seconds, and turned around to see someone trying to steal her car.
Zezech said Stakely ran after the car and jumped on it. She fell off the hood and was then run over by the car, causing a head injury that proved fatal. The vehicle was found abandoned a short time later in the same townhome complex. Stakely’s son was unharmed in the backseat.
Stakely’s son was initially thought to have been asleep during the incident, but Zezech said in the months following his mother’s death, his family has learned he was awake.
“We’re not alleging they’re monsters, but what happened here is monstrous,” Zezech said. “This event, the death of Ms. Stakely, is the worst-case scenario of what could happen when you’re out stealing cars or stealing from cars. This was a momentary decision that had unbelievably profound impact.”
Zezech said Dowling did not decide to steal Stakely’s car and was never inside the vehicle. He also did not call 911 or turn himself in to the police after the fact.
Stakely’s parents, who were not at the Aug. 7 hearing, provided a statement read by an advocate from the Franklin County Prosecutor’s office. In the statement, they said nothing justified Dowling’s decision, as the adult among the three people involved, to break the law.
Stakely’s brother, Braedyn Price, attended the hearing and told Dowling he forgave him.
“I hope you have the humanity in you to understand that,” Price said. “This shouldn’t happen to anybody’s family ever again.”
After the hearing, the brother shared an embrace with one of Dowling’s supporters, Ben Price, no relation, who spoke on Dowling’s behalf.
Both Dowling and his attorney, Bryan Bowen, acknowledged that nothing they could say or do during the hearing would ever atone for what happened or the loss of Stakely’s life.
“Day and night, I think about what could have happened differently,” Dowling said. “Those were never my intentions. This is what has haunted me every day since it happened.”
Before imposing his sentence, Brown said he understood how complex Dowling’s case was. He may not have been the person driving Stakely’s car when it struck her, but he was there, and he, as the adult, did nothing to prevent his friends from trying to take the car.
“You could have walked away, you could’ve said no,” Brown said. “You could’ve called 911, you could’ve called the media, the police, and said ‘I was there, this happened and I saw it.'”
“There were things after the event happened, after she was hit, after she was run over, you could have stepped up. You couldn’t have brought her back, but you could’ve done something,” Brown continued. “You’re the adult, they’re juveniles, they should know better, but it’s kind of like being the oldest child. It’s on you to do the right thing, and you didn’t do it. There is absolutely a punishment that needs to be paid.”
Brown also decried the circumstances that caused Stakely to be in a situation where she had to work a second job to make ends meet.
“Our society shouldn’t punish teachers for going into the profession of educating young people,” Brown said. “The fact that the people who pull the levers of power refuse to adequately pay and support our public educators is disgraceful or shameful.”
Brown said that while Dowling had no criminal record and had been forthcoming about his involvement after being turned in by one of the juveniles involved, Stakely’s death should be a wake-up call to anyone stealing cars.
“It’s ghoulish to compare and ask is one death worth less than another death. Ms. Stakely didn’t deserve what happened to her,” he said. “She probably just wanted to get home and get some sleep before the next day. She runs back in to grab that thing and comes back out, and some jerk is stealing her car with her child inside. It’s totally foreseeable that she would jump on the hood to try and protect her son.”
One of the now-17-year-olds involved is in the custody of the Ohio Department of Youth Services for at least one year but could remain there until his 21st birthday, according to Franklin County Juvenile Court records. The other teenager’s case remains pending in Franklin County Juvenile Court.
The Dispatch is not naming those teenagers because they were not charged as adults.
Reporter Bethany Bruner can be reached at bbruner@gannett.com or on Bluesky at @bethanybruner.dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Carjacker sentenced to prison in death of Ohio mom killed while trying to save son
Reporting by Bethany Bruner, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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