[B]URLINGTON — More than two and a half years after a crash that killed five teenagers on I-89, Steven Bourgoin will stand trial for their murders starting Monday at Chittenden County Superior Court in Burlington.
Bourgoin is facing five counts of murder stemming from an October 2016 wrong-way crash that killed five Mad River Valley teenagers. His attorney, Robert Katims, is expected to argue that Bourgoin was insane at the time of the crash.
The students killed were Mary Harris, 16, and Cyrus Zschau, 16, both of Moretown; Liam Hale, 16, of Fayston; Eli Brookens, 16, of Waterbury; and Janie Chase Cozzi, 15, of Fayston.
The case has received substantial media attention since the crash, and the trial, which is expected to take around three weeks, is one of the most highly-anticipated in the state in years.
Crash
Around midnight on Oct. 8, 2016, a Toyota Tacoma allegedly driven by Bourgoin at 79 mph heading the wrong way on I-89 South from Bolton Flats to Williston crashed into the Volkswagen Jetta the teenagers were traveling in, setting it on fire.
After Williston police arrived at the scene and attempted to put the fire out and rescue a female from the car, Bourgoin allegedly stole the officer’s cruiser and headed south on I-89 at a high rate of speed.
When Richmond police intercepted Bourgoin on I-89, he turned north and sped back to the initial crash site, where he collided again with the teenagers’ vehicle and eight other cars as he tried to flee the scene.
Ten people in those eight cars suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Bourgoin was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center and survived his injuries.
Williston Police Officer Eric Shepard, the officer who initially responded to the scene, said Bourgoin was silent after being taken into custody but tried to escape while being evaluated by medics.
Bourgoin was placed under arrest while at UVMMC. He pleaded not guilty to five charges of second degree murder Oct. 14 from his hospital bed.
“Essentially the standard we’re operating under is the wanton disregard for the value of human life,” then-State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said at the time, “To go five miles in the wrong way at night at a high rate of speed certainly exhibits an extreme indifference to the value of human life, and that’s why we brought the second-degree murder charge.”
Bourgoin’s toxicology report showed high levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his system eight hours after the crash, as well as fentanyl and prescription drugs.
The levels of fentanyl and the depressant midazolam could be “therapeutic levels,” according to the Vermont Department of Public Safety. Bourgoin had 10 nanograms of THC in his system.
Nearly 1,000 people attended a vigil for the teenagers days after the crash at Harwood Union High School in Duxbury, where four of the five teenagers had been students.
At the vigil, Mary Harris’ uncle, Daryl Mays, said he had known the teenagers who were killed for most of their lives and gave advice to the mourners.
“Be thankful for your friends, feel blessed that you got to live today,” he said. “Do your best, live a great life, that’s what you can do for your friends who died.”
Bourgoin’s Mental Health
Bourgoin sought medical treatment at the UVMMC the morning of the crash, and his mental health at the time of the crash will be a central part of the trial. He was seen entering and leaving UVMMC’s emergency room three times that morning.
Authorities initially said the Howard Center, the designated mental health agency in Chittenden County, was contacted about Bourgoin hours before the crash but did not screen him. Howard Center officials said they had never been contacted to evaluate Bourgoin.
At the time of the crash, Bourgoin was facing severe financial and legal challenges.
Police found a foreclosure notice and a shut-off notice from the gas company and “numerous medical bills” at his Williston home after the crash.
He was also facing domestic assault and unlawful restraint charges in Chittenden County after allegedly pulling his ex-girlfriend’s hair and pushing her to the floor in a May 2016 incident.
The day before the crash, Bourgoin had lunch with a friend who told police that Bourgoin was “really stressed” about his child custody fight with his ex-girlfriend.
Bourgoin clocked out of work early and then quit his job at Lake Champlain Chocolates the day before the crash. He told his manager that he was sick to his stomach and needed to get a better-paying job. The manager told police that Bourgoin was “acting strange and appeared really down.”
Asima Cosabic, a friend of Bourgoin’s, told VTDigger that Bourgoin had anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma and believed he had Lyme disease.
She said that Bourgoin “had a lot of problems” and his mood had gotten worse in the weeks leading up to the crash.
Cosabic said she didn’t know why Bourgoin was at UVM Medical Center the morning of the crash, but she suspected he was seeking help.
“Just knowing him and knowing his struggles, he was looking for help, I can almost guarantee it,” she said.
Insanity Defense
A doctor who examined Bourgoin found him competent to stand trial in December 2016. The competency finding meant Bourgoin understood the charges against him.
But it did not mean that Bourgoin understood what he was doing at the time of the crash, which is what the defense will argue. Katims filed notice in March 2018 that he planned to use the insanity defense.
Under Vermont law, the defense would have to establish insanity by a preponderance of the evidence.
“A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he or she lacks adequate capacity either to appreciate the criminality of his or her conduct or to conform his or her conduct to the requirements of law,” according to state statute.
Under the law, the terms “mental disease or defect” includes “congenital and traumatic mental conditions as well as disease” and not repeated criminal or otherwise anti-social conduct.
If he is found insane, the court can decide whether he should remain in custody.
In March, Katims told the court that he learned that the state’s expert had determined that Bourgoin was insane at the time of the crash, reaching the same conclusion as a defense expert.
Dr. Reena Kapoor, a psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine, had three interviews with Bourgoin and reviewed his medical and prison records. Katims is planning on calling Kapoor to testify. The state is not challenging the expert testimony.
Chittenden County Deputy State’s Attorney Susan Hardin said as part of the state’s rebuttal to the insanity defense, the state is planning on calling Bourgoin’s ex-girlfriend to testify about the incident that led to the earlier domestic assault and unlawful restraint charges.
“This case is not a case about who committed the crimes on Oct. 8, 2016, it’s not even a case of whether crimes were actually committed on that date,” Hardin said. “It’s a question of why those crimes were committed because the defendant has raised the defense of insanity.”
Trial
Katims argued that Bourgoin should not be tried in Chittenden County and requested a change of venue in April 2018.
“Not only has publicity in this case been pervasive and severely negative with respect to Mr. Bourgoin, but any potential juror from Chittenden County is likely to have driven through the scene of the crime (a section of Interstate 89 in the Town of Williston) on numerous occasions,” Katims wrote. “The community in Chittenden was powerfully impacted by the events at issue in this case, and cannot be expected to judge Mr. Bourgoin fairly.”
The state objected to that effort, and Judge Kevin W. Griffin wrote that Bourgoin was not able to show that he would be unable to receive a fair trial in Burlington due to prejudicial media coverage against him.
“For the most part, though, the court finds that the reporting was fair, largely duplicative, and not inflammatory […] Some reports included sympathetic information from defendant’s friends regarding defendant’s background and recent struggles,” the decision states.
Jury selection wrapped up last week, with jurors questioned about their views on mental illness and how much media coverage about the crash they had seen.
During jury selection, one woman was asked what she remembered most from the media coverage of the case.
“Just the deep sadness of the whole situation,” she said.
