DENHAM SPRINGS — Holly Crow wants to make sure no other family has to endure the pain and anguish hers has experienced since her daughter, Jody Mann, was killed in a hit-and-run incident last year.
She’s working to create “Jody’s Law,” which she hopes will significantly increase the penalties for leaving the scene of a crash where someone is seriously injured or killed.
Crow said she’s meeting Tuesday with a representative who may become the bill’s sponsor.
“We’ve just got to iron out the details,” she said.
Finding a way to strengthen the system has become deeply important to her because her daughter always wanted to try to make a difference.
“She would have wanted some good to come out of this some kind of way,” Crow said.
Mann was 20 when she was struck by a car while walking home from a friend’s house on March 29, 2025. Crow was monitoring her location on the Life 360 app, and became alarmed when Mann stopped moving toward home and didn’t answer repeated calls. Crow asked police to conduct a welfare check, and officers found Mann badly injured. The driver had fled, according to police.
Police arrested Brandon Chenevert, now 31, on April 1 on felony hit-and-run, negligent injuring, obstruction of justice and related charges. The charges were upgraded to include negligent homicide after Mann died on April 16.
Chenevert was out on bond in that case when he was arrested in December on drug charges. Earlier this month, a judge revoked Chenevert’s bond in Mann’s death.
MORE: Bond revoked for Livingston Parish man involved in fatal hit-and-run
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Crow said she was relieved when Chenevert returned to jail but believes Louisiana’s bail process for hit-and-run cases needs to change.
In Livingston Parish, bonds for some crimes are pre-set. Crow said she wants to make sure that when someone is arrested in a fatal or serious injury hit-and-run crash, they have to go before a judge to have bond set. That, she said, gives judges a chance to review each specific case.
She also wants harsher penalties. In Louisiana, the maximum sentence for hit-and-run driving involving serious injury or death is 10 years in prison. Crow said other states impose stiffer penalties, including up to 20 years, and up to 30 years in Florida.
“That way people know that this isn’t something they can just do and get away with,” she said.
Crow is also advocating for a legal presumption that a driver who leaves the scene of a serious crash was impaired. Under her proposal, Crow said, “it would be up to them and their lawyers to prove otherwise.”
Beyond creating a law, Crow said she’s also been in touch with several organizations that work to make roads safer and to protect pedestrians.
Chenevert has pleaded not guilty in Mann’s death and is scheduled to return to court next month.
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