Forty four year-old James “Rocky” Allen, accused of murdering his mother, 70-year-old Charlotte Grimes, of Garnett, by ramming his vehicle into hers multiple times, in December of 2020, had the charges against him reduced to a misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident charge. In a bond reduction hearing, his defense attorney presented evidence from an accident reconstruction specialist that contradicted some of the findings of a Kansas Highway Patrol report. The defense contended primarily that what the KHP alleged was a second impact on Grimes’ vehicle was in fact a lower-speed residual impact from the initial higher speed collision to the rear of Grimes’ car by Allen’s pickup as the two spun together post impact, which was misrecorded by computer data gathering sensors in Grimes’ car.
