A 27-year-old Manteno man was arrested last week on a warrant charging him with two counts of aggravated driving under the influence in connection with a three-car crash in rural Monee that claimed the life of a Beecher man and injured the man’s wife, according to Will County sheriff’s police and court records online.
Myles J. Swets, of the 200 block of Walnut Street, Manteno, was driving on West Pauling Road about a mile east of Route 50 at about 9:30 a.m. Jan. 15 when he went off the road onto the shoulder, slamming into a parked car, sheriff’s police said. The parked car, containing Mattew B. Eisele, 39, and his wife, was propelled it into another parked car and then into a field, police said.
The Eiseles had been helping another couple with a flat tire, but both couples had returned to their respective vehicles on the shoulder to warm up and await a necessary tool, police said. Eisele had placed reflective placards behind his vehicle, police said.
Eisele was extricated from his vehicle by Monee fire officials and taken to Olympia Fields Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:25 a.m. His wife was taken to South Suburban Hospital with cuts and back pain. The passengers in the other car, a 17-year-old female from Oak Forest and 18-year-old male from Beecher, were not injured and refused medical treatment.
Swets, who was on probation after pleading guilty in November to possessing a controlled substance in March 2023, was indicted May 9 with aggravated DUI/causing death and aggravated DUI/causing injury, court records show.
He is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing Friday at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet, court records show.
Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
