[B]URLINGTON – The first officer to respond to a crash that killed five Mad River Valley teenagers when their car was struck by a wrong way driver on Interstate 89 took the witness stand Thursday, telling a jury he did all he could to free those trapped in the burning vehicle.
“I desperately tried,” Williston Police Officer Eric Shepard said, adding that he attempted to open the doors of the 2004 Volkswagen Jetta, but could not get them to release.
“I tried banging on the windows,” he testified. “I was trying to yell, ‘Get out, get out, get out.’”
However, the officer said the fire was too hot and he couldn’t get the injured teens inside to respond.
Shepard testified Thursday on the fourth day of the trial of 38-year-old Steven Bourgoin, who is facing five counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of the teens in the Oct. 8, 2016, late-night crash on I-89 in Williston.
Following the officer’s testimony, the prosecution rested its case. Bourgoin’s attorneys are expected to start presenting the defense case Friday.
His lawyers don’t dispute that Bourgoin was behind the wheel of the pickup driving the wrong way on the interstate on the night of the crash, but contend that he was insane at the time.
Eli Brookens, 16, of Waterbury; Janie Chase Cozzi, 15, of Fayston; Liam Hale, 16, of Fayston; and Cyrus Zschau, 16, of Moretown, were all in the Jetta when the fire ignited after the vehicle was struck by Bourgoin’s 2012 Toyota Tacoma pickup.
Mary Harris, 16, of Moretown, was ejected from the car before the blaze.
Shepard testified Thursday that after he arrived on the crash scene he grabbed a fire extinguisher from the back of his cruiser and raced to the burning Jetta in the median.
Seconds later he noticed his vehicle parked up on the interstate was moving, slowly at first. Initially, Shepard testified, he believed that maybe he’d left the vehicle in drive.
“I thought, ‘This is not the time for that,” he recalled from the witness stand.
Then, Shepard said, he realized someone was in the cruiser and leaving the scene, heading south on the interstate away from the scene.
“Who has my car?” he yelled over a police radio, captured on his cruiser’s dash cam video and played for the jury Thursday.
“Who stole my EQ?” he could then be heard shouting on the radio, using a police term for his cruiser.
Moments later, Shepard testified, he heard a radio call from another member of the Williston police force, Sgt. Brian Claffy.
His colleague was reporting that the stolen cruiser had turned around on the interstate and was heading north on the interstate, back toward the crash site, at more than 100 mph.
Shepard, who testified that he was still in the median, looked up at the roadway and saw more than a dozen people out of their vehicles after pulling over at the crash scene.
“I cleared the interstate of as many people as I could possibly could,” the officer said. “I yelled, screamed, whatever it took to get the interstate clear.”
Shepard said he then found a safe spot “to take a position,” and drew his firearm.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, the prosecutor, asked the officer if he could see the approaching cruiser.
“I could hear it before I could see it,” Shepard responded. “It was definitely engine to the max.”
“Were you considering firing at your cruiser?” George asked him.
“Yes, absolutely,” Shepard responded.
“What decision did you ultimately make about firing?” the prosecutor asked.
“I had just enough time to think that through,” the officer said. “A vehicle that was going 100 miles per hour, shooting from an angle, plus I saw some folks in the background, it wasn’t worth the possibility of that.”
The speeding cruiser slammed into Bourgoin’s already heavily damaged Tacoma pickup that had been left on the interstate from the earlier crash.
“As the two vehicles collided, time slowed, time slowed to almost nothing,” Shepard testified. “I actually watched the operator get ejected out the driver side window.”
The officer added, “It was something that will stick with me. That was a very bizarre thing to watch.”
Shepard said he went over to the man who had been thrown out of the cruiser and saw that it Bourgoin, who was lying on the ground.
“I was yelling, ‘Stop, police, don’t move, show me your hands,’” the officer testified.
“You had your firearm pointed at him?” George asked.
“Oh yes, most definitely,” Shepard replied.
“Did he comply with your commands,” the prosecutor asked.
“Yes,” the officer responded, adding that Bourgoin didn’t say anything.
Another responding Vermont State Police trooper put Bourgoin in handcuffs, according to Shepard.
Michael Sorenson, who recently retired from the Vermont State Police, also testified Thursday of the work he did prior to leaving the force as part of the crash reconstruction investigation of the Bourgoin case.
Sorensen testified that Bourgoin’s pickup was heading north in the southbound lane of the interstate when it crashed into the Jetta, which was heading south.
At the point of impact, Sorensen estimated the pickup was driving at a speed of 78.3 mph, according to data collected from the truck’s computer system.
At the last moment, about 1.3 seconds before impact, the service brake of the pickup was engaged, Sorensen testified. At 0.3 seconds, the service brake was almost fully engaged, he added, pointing out the pickup had anti-lock brakes.
Sorenson also testified that he calculated that the Jetta, with the five teens inside, was traveling at about 33 mph at the time of impact with the pickup and turning slightly toward the center line.
“That tells me that they saw something that concerned them and they were slowing down,” Sorensen said of the Jetta’s speed.
Bourgoin’s pickup, traveling north in the southbound passing lane, also turned toward the centerline of the roadway at the last moment before impact with the Jetta, Sorensen testified.
Prosecutors on Thursday played an “animation” of that crash projected onto a courtroom wall for the jury to see. Sorensen said the animation put the information and calculations gathered in the investigation “into motion,” from five seconds before the crash to the point of impact.
Robert Katims, Bourgoin’s attorney, during his cross-examination of Sorensen raised the possibility that his client’s turning actions may have been taken to avoid another vehicle in the southbound passing lane.
“Can you tell us whether or not if there was a vehicle in the passing lane going southbound in those five seconds before the accident?” Katims asked Sorenson.
“I don’t know,” Sorensen replied.
Earlier, Chittenden County Deputy State’s Attorney Susan Hardin, another prosecutor, asked Sorensen if he believed the crash would have occurred had Bourgoin stayed in the southbound passing lane, and not turned at the last moment toward the center line.
“No,” Sorensen replied.
Katims then asked Judge Kevin Griffin if the attorneys could approach the bench and a discussion took place.
Moments later, the judge addressed the jury.
“I ask that you disregard the last answer that you heard from the witness,” Griffin said.
At one point Thursday, Shepard, the Williston police officer first to arrive at the crash scene, testified he knew Bourgoin prior to the night of the fatal crash because the two had a “prior law enforcement encounter.”
Though the officer didn’t talk about it in court, that “prior law enforcement encounter” took place in May 2016, a few months before the crash. That’s when the officer arrested Bourgoin in a domestic violence case, according to court records.
George, the prosecutor, asked Shepard if he could point out Bourgoin in the courtroom Thursday, and the officer did, though he noted that the former Williston man appeared to have gained weight and had longer hair than the last time he saw him.
“He’s sitting in the defendant’s chair,” Shepard said of Bourgoin on Thursday. “That’s not a face I’ll forget.”
