‘There’s just a pain there that never completely goes away’: Sisters devastated at news of plea deal in McBride case

QUINCY — Candy Anderson still has a screen shot of the quote on her phone.

Days after an Aug. 14, 2020 crash at Fourth and Broadway that killed a grandmother and her three grandchildren, First Assistant State’s Attorney Todd Eyler said during a press gathering he believed the crash was no accident.

He said his office would “fully pursue” all 16 counts against Natasha McBride, who was indicted by an Adams County grand jury on four counts each of first-degree murder, reckless homicide, leaving the scene of an injury accident and driving while license revoked. 

Anderson, who lives in Rushville, and her sister, Cathy Rigg of Industry, were in Adams County Circuit Court Monday morning for what was supposed to be the start of a three-day bench trial for McBride, now 39. However, when they heard Assistant State’s Attorney Josh Jones say a plea agreement had been reached, the disappointment was unmistakable.

“I didn’t want to see any kind of plea agreement come about,” Anderson said.

She then pointed to her phone and said, “We were promised by Eyler. He promised to prosecute this to the fullest extent. I’m way past disappointment. Devastation is really a better word. (McBride) took four lives, and my dad died of a broken heart six months later.”

McBride allegedly ran a traffic light at Fourth and Broadway while speeding. She drove her vehicle into another vehicle driven by Jenniffer Hendricks, 54, of Rushville. Hendricks and three grandchildren — Dakota Corrick, 6, Archer Corrick, 4, and Ransom Corrick, 21 months, all of Kirksville, Mo. — were killed.

Mark Hendricks, Jenniffer Hendricks’ husband, survived the crash. He is Anderson’s and Rigg’s brother. 

“He’s very private,” Rigg said. “It’s really hard to tell how he’s doing. He doesn’t talk about his feelings or anything, so I don’t know. I know he’s my brother, but I can’t scope him out.”

The boys lived with their parents, Molly and Lucas Corrick, in Kirksville. Mark and Jenniffer often would drive from Rushville to Kirksville to pick up their grandsons and bring them back to Schuyler County for a few days.

Anderson and Rigg said they remembered the last time they saw the Corrick family was at a funeral for their mother, Marilyn Hendricks, who died at 87 on June 24, 2020.

“Oh, those boys. They were full of spit and vinegar,” Rigg said. 

“They definitely were part of our family,” Anderson added with a laugh.

Mark and Jenniffer had been married for nearly 40 years at the time of the crash. Jenniffer was 15 years old when they were married.

“Jenniffer was Mark’s childhood sweetheart,” Anderson said. “Neither one of them ever dated anybody else. It was genuine.”

Neither woman will forget the day they learned of the fatal crash.

On this day, the Corricks drove to West Quincy, Mo., to meet with Mark and Jenniffer and drop off the boys. 

“I think Molly and Lucas had some kind of anniversary or something like that, and they were going to spend time together,” Anderson said. “It was to be a special occasion for them.”

Rigg, who works as a licensed clinical social worker at Culbertson Memorial Hospital in Rushville, said she received multiple phone calls early that evening.

“Blessing Hospital was trying to contact me,” she said. “I didn’t answer my phone. If I look down at my phone and see a number I don’t know, because there’s so many scammers, I don’t answer it. After about 15-20 minutes, my workplace called me and said Blessing was trying to get a hold of me on an emergency issue. 

“I called and talked to the nurse, and she started talking about my brother’s condition. I said, ‘I need to get a hold of his wife.’ And she hesitated. She said, ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ Then she told me (Jenniffer) had been killed in the accident, and one of the boys had been killed instantaneously. The other two weren’t dead yet, but then they didn’t make it, either.”

“(Rigg) called me, and I was working and didn’t have my phone,” Anderson said. “It was actually in the car, and when I did get the message, she said there had been an accident. Because she was on her way over (to Quincy), it was a short message. I didn’t know if my brother was alive until I saw my sister in the ER parking lot (at Blessing).”

What already had been a rough year became even more difficult when the sisters saw their father, Melvin Hendricks, suffer after losing his wife of 69 years and his great-grandchildren in a two-month span. He died on Feb. 2, 2021.

“After my mom died, my dad said the only reason he had for living was those three little boys,” Anderson said. “And then they were taken. Six months later, my dad was gone. It wasn’t just the four lives. My brother will never be physically what he was before this accident.”

The sisters each handled the tragedy in their own way. 

Rigg said she “continues to ache” over the losses her brother and her niece suffered.

“There’s just a pain there that never completely goes away,” she said. “It pops in your head constantly that this has happened. To think that one person’s reckless action could have had those kind of results.”

Anderson, who retired from the Rushville Treatment and Detention Facility, previously worked as a victims’ advocate for QUANADA. After the crash, she spent 18 months in counseling.

“It was devastating for me to watch my father give up on life and die because he was my hero,” she said, fighting through tears. “Dad already was talking about losing the love of his life. They were inseparable. He kept telling everybody they had been together for 69 years. The only time they ever were apart was when mom was in the hospital after a heart attack. They went everywhere together. The grocery store, you name it. Dad used to laugh and say, ‘If you see me, you’ll see her.’

“After the car crash happened and things started going downhill, I said, ‘Dad, there’s still good things to look at.’ I was trying to get his mind in a little better place. He would say, ‘It only takes one bad thing to wipe out 100 good things.’ That was tough to hear. He was so overwhelmed.”

Anderson wore to Monday’s hearing an “Always in Our Hearts” navy blue T-shirt with pictures of Jenniffer and the three boys on the back. She said used the pain from the loss of her parents, Jenniffer and the Corrick kids and directed it toward legal research to try to help strengthen the laws for vehicular homicide. 

“When I saw (the sentencing range) was three to eight years, I thought it needed to be changed,” she said. 

She wrote an amendment to the vehicular homicide law that would enhance the penalties for vehicular homicide if there were other circumstances — such as talking on your phone, prior DUIs or a suspended license. She hoped to double the sentencing range to eight to 16 years while including a $25,000 fine.

“I’ve got support from two Republican legislators and two Democratic legislators saying that they would be willing to put this forward,” Anderson said. “Then (State Senator) Jil Tracy called me back and said the (Adams County) State’s Attorney’s Office wanted us to hold off on this legislation until after this trial. I didn’t want to be the person who tried to push through a law that makes it look like I was trying to affect the outcome of the trial. It’s still sort of on the table.”

As they wait for 17 days to learn about the plea, Anderson and Rigg worry about providing closure for the family. 

“What’s most important for me is what my brother, my niece (Molly) and her husband (Lucas) want,” Rigg said. “What can they live with? It’s never been about revenge. It’s about justice and protecting the public.”

The Quincy Police Department said in its crash report McBride admitted to smoking marijuana shortly before leaving in her vehicle. She reportedly admitted to police that she was driving “really, really fast” and using a cellphone at the time of the crash.

“She’s a danger to society,” Anderson said. “She’s snubbed her nose at the law, and she snubbed her nose at the safety of other human beings. She has no remorse whatsoever. None. She’ll do it again. There’s no doubt in my mind. If she gets back on the street, she’ll continue to thumb her nose at the law and do whatever she wants to do.

“If I saw some remorse, I’d say yeah, this might be a wake-up call. But I didn’t see any in that courtroom today.”

McBride remains in the Adams County Jail on $5 million bond.