Winter trial delves into details of fatal crash
A crash reconstruction expert said Thursday that a 17-year-old Evergreen girl was traveling over 80 miles per hour in the wrong lane on March 19, 2009, when she collided with an oncoming vehicle that had slowed to 31 mph.
Barb Watson, a former Montana Highway Patrol trooper now in private practice, provided her findings Thursday during the fourth day of a Flathead County District Court trial in which Justine Winter is accused of two counts of deliberate homicide.
The violent collision killed 35-year-old Erin Thompson and her 13-year-old son Caden Odell and left Winter with serious injuries.
Watson was one of two crash reconstruction experts to testify Thursday as prosecutors prepare to bring their case to a close.
Meanwhile, Winter’s defense attorneys, Maxwell Battle and David Stufft, sought to identify inconsistencies and factual errors in the accounts of Watson and Montana Highway Patrol Sgt. Dustin Lerette.
LeRette testified that errors were indeed made when he and other troopers used a device called a total station to survey the crash scene and mark scrapes, tire scuffs and other evidence on the morning following the crash.
Certain evidentiary points were initially left out of the analysis, LeRette said under questioning by Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan. However, he testified that the analysis was eventually corrected and that the errors were minor.
Watson, called to testify after LeRette spent several hours on the stand, said she used LeRette’s research in producing her own report on the crash after being retained by prosecutors.
Both reconstruction experts came to the same conclusion: Winter’s Pontiac Grand Am was traveling between 83 and 85 miles per hour when she crossed the centerline on U.S. 93 at Church Drive and collided with Thompson’s Subaru on Stillwater Bridge.
She said the errors and inconsistencies noted by Battle during cross-examination were not significant.
“The errors that were made on the drawing did not affect the integrity of the evidence,” she said of one of LeRette’s diagrams.
Battle also pressed LeRette on a maximum impact analysis conducted in 2010 during which LeRette placed the two wrecked vehicles at their estimated point of contact in a county lot.
He further questioned LeRette on the level of investigation, focusing for a time on a seat belt removed from Winter’s vehicle that LeRette said was void of blood or signs that it had been used during the collision.
Prosecutors accuse Winter of intentionally causing the collision after threatening to crash her vehicle and commit suicide during a text message conversation with her former boyfriend.
Battle noted that LeRette did not conduct any testing of the belt for possible signs of blood.
“If this had been a gunfight between two people out on the highway, you would have been out looking for blood splatters,” Battle inquired.
District Court Judge Katherine Curtis will decide today whether or not to allow jurors to see an animation depicting Watson’s analysis of the crash. She will also decide on whether or not to allow Winter’s defense to call their own crash reconstruction expert to testify.
Deputy County Attorney Lori Adams said prosecutors will likely conclude their case by noon today, allowing Winter’s defense attorneys to begin calling their own witnesses.
The trial is expected to last until late next week.
Winter, who is being charged as an adult, faces a maximum of 200 years or life in prison if convicted on both counts of deliberate homicide.
Winter has also filed a lawsuit against Thompson’s estate in which she accused Thompson of causing the collision and a construction company of not adequately marking the bridge where the collision occurred.