ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A widow is frustrated with the criminal justice system. Her husband, an Orange County Field Service Officer, was hit and killed in a crash involving a driver, who’s now facing D-U-I and Vehicular homicide charges. It’s been four years, and the driver still hasn’t gone to trial. “He was my person; we were married over 31 years. When he was killed,” Nancy Grassi told Channel 9 Anchor Daralene Jones.
Nancy Grassi remembers the knock on the front door four years ago, as if it were yesterday. “I opened it up. It’s a lieutenant. It’s the Orange County Sheriff’s office saying that I could get you to the hospital. David’s been in an accident,” Grassi stated.
Her husband, David Grassi, a 19-year-veteran of the Orange County Sheriff’s office, was sitting in his patrol car, guarding a construction zone on I-4, south of downtown Orlando when a driver plowed into him. “He was pushed against the steering wheel, but they said they did everything they could, and they couldn’t save him,” Grassi told Jones.
According to the 2021 crash report, the driver who hit David was speeding going 87 at 100 percent acceleration. This is the first time we’re seeing the damage from the crash and hearing what Neil Demetree told Orlando police. “I guess I just came over in the lane. Something that shouldn’t happen, but it did,” Demetree told Orlando Police officers.
Demetree also admitted he’d been drinking at a local strip club. “I don’t want to (expletive) around. Three beers, Rachel’s,” Demetree stated.
Officers didn’t arrest him that night, instead discussing with him whether he had a family member or friend who could pick him up, and then Demetree can be heard asking if he can call an Uber or Lyft.
Prosecutors charged him with vehicular homicide, eight months later in July of 2022. He ran away from our camera when he bonded out of jail, and has been free, waiting for trial, for nearly four years. “The criminal justice system does not respect the victims and their families,” Grassi said.
9-Investigates spent weeks digging through the court records, and shared them with a veteran criminal defense attorney, who is not connected to the case. “It’s a long amount of time for any criminal case to go on,” Kendell Ali told Jones.
A major delay happened in 2023 when prosecutors added a DUI Manslaughter charge. That set off a series of motions from Demetree’s attorneys arguing his blood alcohol level was below the legal limit when he was tested two hours after the crash. “You almost have to start all over again and redo discovery, file motions and do additional investigations,” Ali said.
Defense attorneys have since questioned whether the construction zone was properly set up to prevent a crash. And they also wanted to test the patrol car to see if it might have been moving when Demetree hit it - but the Orange County Sheriff’s Office had already destroyed Grassi’s car. “I realize everybody has the right to due process , but when does it come due process, and then trying to drag it on. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not backing down,” Grassi said.
There is a hearing scheduled for March 24th to determine if testimony and evidence can be introduced raising questions about why the sheriff’s office car was destroyed before it could be examined to determine if it was moving at the time of the crash.
Neil Demetree’s attorney told me all of the motions filed through the years are about providing his client proper representation in a case that could land him in prison for at least a decade, if convicted.
Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.