For the first time in two decades, Congressional candidate David Jolly openly discussed his role in a fatal accident that took place in 1989.
Sixteen-year-old Jolly struck Blair Warren Ropes while he was walking along Bruce B. Downs Boulevard in Hillsborough County after his motorcycle had broken down.
Ropes, a resident of Zephyrhills, died at the scene.
“It was a tragedy that occurred when I was a child,” Jolly said in an interview with Preston Rudie of WTSP/10 News. “It took several years for me to get to a place of peace, but not something anybody would ever get over.”
After stopping at the crash, jolly immediately rushed for help, and then returned to the accident scene.
“I’ll be honest, for several years it challenged my faith,” he said. “I questioned how such things could happen, but tragedy occurs.”
WTSP learned of the accident through a tip, and Jolly questioned the purpose of the timing.
“I don’t know who has pushed this story,” Jolly told Rudie, “but I believe it to be a heartless individual who has clearly never lost anyone close to them or experienced such a tragedy.”
“Honestly,” he added, “for someone to bring this up 25 years later in a political campaign dishonors both Blair and Sandra (his girlfriend) and their families and their heartbreak, and it disrespects what ultimately is a human tragedy that no one should ever have to experience.”
