[B]URLINGTON — A jury deliberating in the murder trial of Steven Bourgoin went home from the courthouse Tuesday evening without a reaching a verdict, and will return Wednesday morning to continue weighing the case.
The jury began its deliberations late Tuesday morning, 12 trial days after hearing opening arguments in the case of the man accused of driving the wrong-way on Interstate 89 in Williston, striking another vehicle and killing all five teens inside.
“We received a note from the jury that they are done for the evening,” Judge Kevin Griffin told the attorneys in the case at 7:42 p.m. Tuesday.
The jury is expected to return the courthouse in Burlington at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday and begin its second day of deliberations.
Earlier Tuesday morning, Judge Griffin gave the jury its instructions in considering the case, one day after they heard closing arguments from the attorneys.
“You, and you alone, are the triers of fact,” Griffin said while reading out instructions for about an hour, before the jury began its deliberations at 11:27 a.m.
“The case is yours,” Griffin told the deliberating jurors as they walked out of the courtroom.
Throughout the trial, 16 jurors have filled the jury box. Late Tuesday morning, following the reading of the instructions, 12 of those 16 were randomly selected to deliberate, with the remaining four to serve as alternates.
The alternates asked the judge if they could deliberate among themselves Tuesday. The judge told them flatly no, worrying that it could lead to a mistrial. The four instead spent the afternoon sitting outside the deliberation room.
Bourgoin faces five counts of second-degree murder stemming from the late-night Oct. 8, 2016, crash that killed five Central Vermont teens.
Killed in the crash were Eli Brookens, 16, of Waterbury; Janie Chase Cozzi, 15, of Fayston; Liam Hale, 16, of Fayston; and Mary Harris and Cyrus Zschau, both 16, and both from Moretown.
Bourgoin also faces charges for taking the cruiser of a responding officer to the crash scene, fleeing and then driving it back to the site where he slammed at more than 100 mph into his already heavily damaged 2012 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck on the interstate.
Police said moments earlier, while driving the wrong way on the interstate, he crashed his pickup truck into a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta with five teens in it.
The five teens in the vehicle were heading south on the interstate in Williston when Bourgoin, in his pickup truck traveling north in the southbound lanes, slammed into their car, according to prosecutors.
Bourgoin’s attorneys have contended that he was insane at the time of the crash, believing he was picking up messages over his electronic devices directing him on top-secret government mission in the days leading up to the fatal crash.
Prosecutors have argued that Bourgoin’s actions were intentional, fueled by rage over his financial struggles and child custody dispute with his ex-girlfriend.
During the trial, jurors heard from experts providing different views of Bourgoin’s sanity at the time of the crash, with witnesses testifying for the defense that he was insane, and one for the prosecution stating he was sane.
The jury emerged from its deliberations back into the courtroom at 4:49 p.m. Tuesday, asking for a playback of Dr. Reena Kapoor’s testimony. Kapoor, a forensic psychiatrist of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
Specifically, the jury asked to hear the roughly cross-examination of Kapoor during the trial last week by Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, the prosecutor.
Kapoor had initially been a prosecution expert, but was dropped after she determined that Bourgoin was insane at the time of the crash. Kapoor diagnosed Bourgoin with a personality disorder, with traits of borderline personality disorder and paranoid personality disorder.
She testified that a person with such a condition has “vulnerability,” or “predisposition,” to becoming psychotic under stress.
“He was under a tremendous amount of stresses related to financial problems and his custody arrangement with his daughter,” Kapoor said of Bourgoin, in the recording played back for the jury, “and then stressors then triggered a psychotic episode, including paranoid ideations, around the time of the crime.”
The prosecutor also asked Kapoor, if a person with the same diagnosis of Bourgoin could become full of rage or suicidal under significant stress.
“People with, in particular, borderline personality traits, can become suicidal, can become psychotic, both of those things can happen under stress,” the doctor replied.
“You believe in this case there is evidence that supports the state’s theory?” George then asked.
“Oh, certainly there is, on the whole, I concluded the opposite,” Kapoor responded. “But, there is certainly evidence on both sides.”
After listening back to Kapoor’s testimony, the jury ordered dinner and said they wanted to continue deliberating into the evening. Four pizzas and boxed salads were delivered at about 6 p.m.
The jury has also been asked to consider “lesser included” charges on the murder counts of involuntary manslaughter.
There was a delay at the start of proceedings Tuesday as the attorneys in the case had an extended meeting at the bench with the judge and later two of the jurors came out and joined the meeting, appearing to be questioned.
Judge Griffin said only that it was a “juror issue.” After about 10 more minutes of discussion with the attorneys at the bench, the conference concluded.
Outside the courtroom late Tuesday morning, Robert Katims, Bourgoin’s attorney, explained that one of the jurors had taken the song “Stuck in the Middle with You,” by the band Stealers Wheel and replaced the lyrics, turning it into “Stuck on This Jury with You.”
Apparently, Katims said, that juror had brought his ukulele to the court Monday, and played that song. “They were just passing the time,” he said, “and it had nothing to with any of the evidence and there wasn’t any discussion about the case.”
