Driver pleads guilty in Truro death where victim was dragged under car

A woman has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death in a 2024 fatal hit and run in Truro, N.S., where the victim was dragged down the street, a case that went unsolved for more than six months.

Rishonda Beals, 27, entered the plea Tuesday in provincial court, admitting in an agreed statement of facts that she was behind the wheel when John MacDonell, 40, was killed on June 28, 2024, and then falsely reported her car had been stolen.

Family members of the victim, including his mother, Wanda Kelly, were in court. She said in a phone interview that more than half a year went by before police laid charges in January and she finally learned the identity of the person suspected of killing her son.

“It was torture. It was torture the not knowing,” she said Thursday.

An agreed statement of facts filed in the case says Beals and MacDonell knew each other and were at his home. It says there was a dispute over money and Beals left the residence at about 1 a.m. as MacDonell, who was under the influence of alcohol, hollered at her aggressively.

The woman got into her Hyundai Sonata, but MacDonell swore, threatened to damage the car and tried to open the door, according to the facts. He then jumped on the hood and continued to threaten Beals, who was afraid and started to drive off slowly, according to the statement.

The facts say Beals accelerated, with the intention of then braking to get MacDonell off the hood, but mistakenly hit the gas again and crashed into a parked Mazda. The airbags of her vehicle deployed.

Beals could not see MacDonell, and didn’t seek to find out what had happened to him. She felt a bump under the vehicle as she drove away and believed it was damage from the crash, according to the facts. But it was MacDonell, who was entangled in the undercarriage and dragged 150 metres.

The car was discovered by a Truro police officer less than two hours later on another street. Later that morning, Beals called police and said her car had been stolen.

Beals was also charged with manslaughter, failing to remain at the scene of an accident causing death and public mischief. Those charges will be withdrawn at sentencing, according to prosecutor Thomas Kayter.

Kelly said MacDonell was a hard-working person, and was in Truro that summer to renovate a duplex. She also said he struggled with a drug addiction, and when she first learned he was dead, she wrongly assumed he had overdosed.

She said her son wasn’t a rule follower and believes he did jump on Beals’s car and acted threateningly. But Tuesday was the first time she learned he’d been dragged under the vehicle, and she said Beals then sent police “on a wild goose chase” by reporting the Sonata stolen.

She credited police with being compassionate and “amazing,” but criticized the case's multiple adjournments and the lengthy court process.

Beals is set to be sentenced in May. Her legal aid lawyer, Trevor McGuigan, declined to comment this week.