Chris Soules has deleted his Instagram account after being arrested and charged with leaving the scene of an accident in which his truck rear-ended a farm tractor and killed the tractor driver.
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The Season 19 The Bachelor star erased his Instagram account that had reached more than 738,000 followers on Tuesday afternoon, but as of Wednesday morning, his Facebook and Twitter accounts are still active.
Soules, 35, apparently deleted Instagram shortly after he was released from jail. He had his first court appearance at the Buchanan County Courthouse on Tuesday morning, which concluded with his mother Linda Soules posting his $10,000 bond at 11:37AM, The Des Moines Register reported.
Soules was booked into the Buchanan County Jail hour earlier at 1:16AM on a criminal charge of leaving the scene of a deadly crash, a jail employee told the newspaper, and he will face a punishable fine of anywhere between $750 to $7,500 and up to five years in prison if convicted.
According to the prosecutor at Soules' arraignment hearing on Tuesday, the former The Bachelor star "fled from the scene and took off" and then refused to leave his house when authorities traced a vehicle to his home on Monday night.
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The prosecutor said it "took hours" to obtain a search warrant in order to "retrieve Soules from inside the house in order to continue the investigation" and arrest him.
"At no point did Mr. Soules come out of the house or cooperate with law enforcement," the prosecutor told an Iowa judge at the hearing, adding that Soules also did not attempt to contact authorities about the accident or surrender himself.
Court documents obtained by the Register say Soules -- who is being represented by West Des Moines-based attorney Mary K. Spellman -- will be supervised following his jail release and not allowed to leave Iowa without written consent from the court. Soules will also be subject to electronic monitoring.
Deputy Cory Hartmann, who initially responded to the accident scene, told the Register that the Buchanan County Sheriff's Office got a call at about 8:20PM on Monday night that a truck had rear-ended a farm tractor north of Aurora in Buchanan County.
The Iowa State Patrol report claims Soules was about 15 miles from home driving a 2008 Chevy pickup truck southbound on Buchanan County Road W45, which is also called Slater Avenue, when his vehicle collided with a John Deere model 2640 tractor. The tractor reportedly rolled into the east ditch and the truck went into the west ditch.
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The driver of the tractor died at the hospital and has been identified as Kenneth E. Mosher, 66, of Aurora, according to the patrol report obtained by the Register.
Iowa State Patrol spokesman Sgt. Scott Bright told the newspaper that Soules left the crash scene and he was allegedly in possession of alcoholic beverages or containers at the time of the accident, though it is unclear if he was intoxicated at the time. Both vehicles were towed from the site and the accident is still under investigation.
A preliminary hearing has been set for Soules, a longtime Arlington resident, on Tuesday, May 2 at 1:30PM.
A representative for the former The Bachelor star told People in a statement, "Chris Soules was involved in an accident Monday evening (April 24) in a rural part of Iowa near his home. He was devastated to learn that Kenneth Mosher, the other person in the accident, passed away. His thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Mosher's family."
In addition to starring on The Bachelor in 2015, Soules also previously competed for Andi Dorfman on The Bachelorette's tenth season as well as Season 20 of Dancing with the Stars and the Food Network's Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition.
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Soules also told Entertainment Tonight in March he may consider an appearance on the fourth season of Bachelor in Paradise this summer.