NORTHAMPTON — Nearly four months after pleading not guilty to a charge of negligent motor vehicle homicide in connection with the death of a 9-year-old Plainfield girl last year, a 70-year-old Hawley man and former school bus driver is expected to change his plea Friday.
Mary Carey, spokeswoman for the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office said late Thursday night that Tendzin Parsons is anticipated to go before the Northampton District Court Friday at 9 a.m.
On May 12 in the Northampton court, Parsons and his attorney Stephen Ferrarone of Amherst entered a not guilty plea before dozens of people, most of whom wearing purple “#loveasstrongassteele” bracelets.
Parsons was released on the conditions that he give up his passport, not drive a motor vehicle and not leave the state without permission of the probation department.
Summer Steele was a third-grade student at Sanderson Academy in Ashfield. She died as a result of injuries she suffered after becoming caught in the door of the school bus she was getting off at her Plainfield home on Oct. 28, 2016. She was pronounced dead at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield shortly before 5 p.m. that day.
Parsons had been driving elementary-age children from the Mohawk Trail Regional School District, telling police he had worked for the bus company F.M. Kuzmeskus Inc. of Shelburne Falls, since late 2014.
Information from the Daily Hampshire Gazette was used in this report.