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Lawyer: Man not at fault in crash
Speeding, alcohol, cocaine didn't cause deaths, he says
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Published: July 29, 2009
WILKESBORO
A Wilkes County man on trial for second-degree murder in connection with a wreck that killed an elderly couple was speeding and had alcohol and cocaine in his system at the time, but he was not impaired and did not cause the wreck, his attorney told jurors yesterday.
Attorneys made opening statements in Wilkes Superior Court in the trial of Ricky Dean Norman, 55, who is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, driving while impaired and other charges in connection with the deaths of Harley and Helen Carter.
The Carters -- he was 82, and she was 73 -- died at the scene of a wreck on March 26, 2007, at the T-intersection where Pleasant Ridge Road meets Old U.S. 21.
Norman was driving a pickup south on Old U.S. 21 when Harley Carter tried to turn left onto Old U.S. 21 from the stop sign on Pleasant Ridge Road in eastern Wilkes County. Norman's truck hit the Carter's car in the driver's side.
"Unfortunately and tragically, the Carters did not yield the right of way," Norman's defense attorney, Jay Vannoy, told jurors. "At the point they pulled out, he couldn't react."
Vannoy told jurors that the evidence will show that Norman was driving faster than the posted 45 mph speed limit, and that he had cocaine in his system but at a level that did not impair him. He said that a lab report from the State Bureau of Investigation showed that Norman's blood-alcohol content was 0.03, which is below the legal limit.
"Just because the evidence will show he had alcohol in his system, just because the evidence will show he had cocaine in his system, and just because he was exceeding the speed limit doesn't presume that Mr. Carter and Mrs. Carter died because (Norman) violated the law," Vannoy said.
District Attorney Tom Horner told jurors that Norman had already been two DWI convictions, and had another DWI charge pending at the time of the wreck.
He said that testimony will show that Norman was impaired from alcohol and cocaine.
Horner also said that a witness, Eddie Settle, saw Norman driving at an estimated 100 mph shortly before the wreck. When Settle testified later in the day, he didn't actually cite an estimated speed, but said he had encountered Norman's oncoming truck as Settle drove in the opposite lane shortly before the accident, and that the truck appeared to be going as fast as it could. Settle said that Norman's truck scared him so badly that he pulled off the side of the road and waved at Norman to slow down.
Norman was traveling at 60 mph when he hit the Carters' car, testified David McCandless, an expert in accident reconstruction. The truck left a 17-foot skid mark.
McCandless testified that the nose of the Carters' car had made it across the centerline, and that in another eight-tenths of a second, the car would have been out of the path of the truck. Glenda Watson of Mooresville, the Carters' oldest daughter, cried as she testified about her parents. Her father was awarded a Bronze Star in World War II and helped liberate Dachau, a German concentration camp, she said.
She had come to visit her parents on the day that they would die, bringing them hot dogs for lunch. They both were healthy and active, she said.
Her husband had taken the phone call that night, and told her that her parents had been killed.
"I said, ‘Not both,'" she testified. "He said, ‘I'm afraid so.'"
■ Monte Mitchell can be reached in Wilkesboro at 336-667-5691 or at mmitchell@wsjournal.com.
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