A Family in Limbo

For nearly four months, the Maillie family has been seeking justice. Without it, they say, they can’t properly grieve.

But instead of justice, they say they're now in limbo, waiting to see if the man who has been charged in connection with the automobile accident that killed mother and wife Sheree Maillie two days before Christmas will ever be found.

Widower Mike Maillie says he’s been given a variety of answers to the numerous questions he has as to why authorities let the man who killed his wife leave the country. The problem is, he says none of the answers add up.

Sheree Maillie died in an auto accident on Woodbourne Road on Dec. 23 after a car driven by Nelio Sotomayor, a 40-year-old foreign national, crossed into her lane. She was a mother of two, a wife, and a teacher's aide at Newtown Middle School.

The accident itself was the worst imaginable thing in the world to happen to the family, said son Michael, 29. But it’s the events that unfolded since then that has prevented the family from grieving.

The timeline of events has been documented in various media outlets, including the Courier Times and The Trentonian.

An accident report by Middletown Township Police was not filed until four weeks after the crash. Middletown police told the Courier Times that is standard procedure for a fatal accident. And the District Attorney didn’t file Vehicular Homicide charges until three weeks later. By then, it was too late – Sotomayor had fled the country to his native Peru.

Bucks County’s Deputy District Attorney Robert Salzer declined to comment on the case because he said it is an ongoing investigation.

But Mike Maillie, who has been in the law enforcement field since 1973, including time as an officer with the New York City Police Department, says officials are pointing fingers. Now, he's afraid his worst fear will come true – that Sotomayor will never be brought to justice for the accident.

He says Sotomayor should have been charged while recovering in St. Mary’s Hospital, where he was for about two weeks after the accident, before boarding a plane to Florida and eventually leaving for Peru.

“He should be in jail waiting trial,” Mike Maillie. Instead, he’s been told Sotomayor is thought to be somewhere in Lima, Peru.

“It seems we can’t move on,” he said. “We’re stuck in limbo. My day is consumed with this. We’re all consumed with this. It doesn’t end. Death is bad enough, however it happens. But you sort of have a chance to move on. We feel like we can’t move on. We don’t get any straight answers from anyone.”

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now involved in the case. Mike Maillie said officials from that agency have told him they sent a request to the Peruvian National Police for government records, including property records, tax information, and employment checks. The department is waiting to hear back in return, according to Maillie’s correspondence with ICE officials.

But Mike Maillie doesn’t know if the process will be fruitful, and he said he’s frustrated by the lack of communication from officials.

“I want it to end. My family wants it to end. It’s tragic enough the way it happened. We want the process to go on, and we’re stuck in limbo.”