Tennessee native Daulton Holly died in a vehicular accident and his body was found just after 2 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2015, along Raccoon River Drive in West Des Moines, Iowa. Van Meter resident Ronald Paul Hauser was sentenced to 10 days of imprisonment and two years of probation in connection with this incident, after reaching a plea agreement on two misdemeanor charges—operating while impaired and leaving the scene of a personal injury accident resulting in serious injury—on Friday, December 9 at the Dallas County Courthouse.
According to the criminal complaint, Hauser had been drinking at a bar in Van Meter the night that Holly died when he decided to drive to the Beach Girls, a strip club along the Raccoon River. Hauser crashed into Holly before arriving at the strip club.
Scott Michels, Hauser’s legal counsel, said there are some mitigating factors that may cast doubt as to Hauser’s guilt, noting, “We know the injuries that he had, we know that Mr. Hauser ran the body over. But as a defense attorney, I think I would have had plenty of arguments to make that could have raised reasonable doubt.”
However, Jennifer Morris, the mother of the victim, is sure of Hauser’s guilt, saying, “If he didn’t know that he hit something, that shows me that man was beyond drunk.”