“Rob never made it to class that day.” ‘I HAVE LOST MY LIFE AND FRIEND’ “He awaited my arrival (at the hospital) so he could drive home to Wisconsin and prepare for a test to return to Minnesota to teach,” she said. The boy, who had just turned 7, was being treated for a serious eye infection, Jessica Bursik said. The night before he was killed, Bursik spent the night by Ian’s bedside at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. “He passionately cared about the Earth and openly shared his love for all things green with his students.” “He was one of the nicest, most generous, nonjudgmental human beings I have ever met in my 70 years on the planet,” said Peggy LePage, a longtime friend and colleague at the school. “He was all that we expect in a citizen and more.” “He was a teacher, a businessman and employer and a leader in his community,” said his brother Dan Bursik of Woodbury. ‘A LEADER IN HIS COMMUNITY’īursick, a professor at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, also was the owner and founder of Dragonfly Gardens, a nursery and greenhouse with locations in Amery and Turtle Lake, Wis. Galler noted the “irony” of the request, which he declined, and Hicks was led out of the courtroom by a Washington County deputy. Gray asked Galler if he would delay the start of Hicks’ sentence by a week to give his client time to say goodbye to his children and inform his employer that he will not be returning to work. “From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry. “Can I offer an apology to the family?” he asked. Wearing a dark-blue suit, Hicks spoke only three sentences during the hearing. His girlfriend, the mother of his two children, ages 4 and 6, sat behind him.
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Hicks sat next to his attorney, Earl Gray, during Friday’s sentencing hearing. (Mary Divine / Pioneer Press)īursik’s Scion XB was so severely damaged it had to be towed to the Lake Elmo Fire Department, where his body was extricated, the complaint stated. 27, 2018, in a crash at Minnesota 36 and Lake Elmo Avenue in Lake Elmo.
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Video from the semi-tractor trailer’s cab shows Hicks, 29, of Independence, Wis., was looking at his cellphone for eight seconds before he slammed into Bursik’s car at 63 mph while it was stopped at Lake Elmo Avenue in February 2018.Īccording to the criminal complaint, Hicks was texting with his girlfriend and using the Zillow real estate app to look up information about a house. “Or,” she asked, “do I sit in the fact that there’s a guy who decided his life was more important than the lives of everyone else around him by picking up his phone and driving?” HICKS USING PHONE TO LOOK UP HOUSES “He truly was the most charismatic and friendly human I’ve ever known.”ĭavis said she wished she could turn to her father for guidance as to whether to forgive Hicks “and move on and live life to the fullest because my dad doesn’t have one to live anymore.” “My dad had this spark for life that I’ve not seen in anyone else,” she said. Jaci Davis said she longs for her father’s “presence, guidance, his smile, his jokes - may they be brilliantly hilarious, wildly inappropriate, painfully dry, or just completely terrible.”īursik loved camping, hiking, sightseeing, traveling, gardening, cooking and “talking about life,” said Davis, of Chetek, Wis. Colin was the quarterback of the school’s football team, he said. In addition to missing the birth of John Robert Davis on June 13, Bursik missed son Colin’s senior year at St. The photo was taken at the Lowell Inn in downtown Stillwater following the ceremony. Jessica and Rob Bursik were married at the Washington County Courthouse in Stillwater on March 23, 2013. “Jaci and her husband, Matt (Davis), just had their first child, a beautiful boy. “Jaci got married last summer, and she asked me to walk her down the aisle and dance with her in place of Rob for the father-daughter dance,” Paul Bursik said.
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FAMILY DETAILS LOSSESīefore Hicks was sentenced, Bursik’s brother Paul Bursik told the courtroom how he will never again get to go to a Green Bay Packers game or go ice fishing or share an early-morning cup of coffee at the cottage with his “best friend.” In addition, Hicks must work with the Minnesota State Patrol and participate in public service announcements and community outreach and education regarding distracted driving. As a condition of the stayed sentence, he will serve 365 days in the Washington County Jail with credit for two days served. Washington County District Judge Greg Galler on Friday sentenced Hicks to four years in jail, which will be stayed, and 10 years of probation.
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Hicks pleaded guilty in April to a charge of criminal vehicular homicide. For nearly 50 minutes Friday morning, family members and friends of Bursik sat in a courtroom in Stillwater and spoke of the sorrow, anguish and pain Hicks inflicted on them.