Newport
Kristin Lake told police in interviews that she fell asleep, crossed the centerline and collided with a Volvo S80 sedan driven by 20-year-old Michelle Fenimore, killing Fenimore and her passenger, Nicholas Carpenter, 18.
“Causation is really, really easy. Kristin Lake told you what happened,” Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway said. “She told you that she fell asleep. She told you that she was in Michelle Fenmiore’s lane of travel. She told you that she woke up. She told you that she moved to get back into her lane, and she told you that the vehicles collided. That collision, ladies and gentlemen, is what caused the death of Michelle Fenimore and caused the death of Nicholas Carpenter.”
In stark contrast, lead defense attorney James Valente told jurors on the seventh day of Lake’s negligent homicide-DUI trial that the evidence in the case “overwhelmingly” points to Fenimore — possibly distracted by her cellphone — crossing into Lake’s northbound travel lane and causing the crash. The “gouge marks” and large debris field in Lake’s lane signify where the crash occurred, Valente said.
In addition, Valente contends that Lake’s statements to police varied and therefore aren’t reliable, and that they actually influenced lead New Hampshire State Police Detective Michael McLaughlin’s reconstruction of the crash.
“McLaughlin’s job was not to take one statement and build a case for that statement,” Valente said. “His job was to vet the statement and consider whether the physical evidence was consistent with that statement.”
The jury got the case around 2:45 p.m. on Tuesday and deliberated for about an hour before being sent home for the day.
To find Lake guilty of the two negligent homicide-DUI charges, jurors must find that Lake’s operation of the vehicle caused the crash and that she was driving impaired that night. Prosecutors and police contend Lake was impaired, and a blood sample taken after the crash showed her blood alcohol content was .114.
In fact, Lake’s own admissions are that she was impaired, Hathaway told jurors. During police interviews, Lake said she felt “buzzed” and that she needed to “sober up” before leaving the Newport Moose Lodge that night, Hathaway said.
“She is telling you she knew she was impaired,” Hathaway said.
During his closing argument, Valente claimed Lake wasn’t impaired at the time of the crash and that her blood alcohol content rose in the hours after the collision.
Valente picked apart McLaughlin’s reconstruction, saying he failed to document “scrub marks,” or scuff-type marks, on the southbound side of the roadway near the centerline, which is where McLaughlin said the cars first came into contact. That point or area of impact is what McLaughlin used to reconstruct the crash, and Valente accused him of pulling that information “out of a hat.”
McLaughlin didn’t send Fenimore’s cellphone to the state laboratory for a forensic examination, a step that could have cleared up whether she was on her phone that night, Valente said.
Contention remains about whether Fenimore sent a text message at 11:05 p.m. or whether she received it. The call reporting the crash came into dispatch around 11:15 p.m.
“We know that Michelle had that phone at some point and there is no reason he couldn’t have sent it to the lab, but that wouldn’t have helped him build the case against Kristin Lake,” Valente said.
Valente also questioned why Fenimore took little to no evasive action to avoid Lake if Lake were in Fenimore’s lane, insinuating that Fenimore failed to react because she was distracted.
In an interview after the crash, Lake said she remembers waking up to the sound of Fenimore’s horn.
Hathaway said that tells him that Fenimore did perceive a threat in her travel lane and reacted.
“That means (Fenimore) wasn’t looking at her cellphone while Ms. Lake was sleeping,” Hathaway said. “Ms. Lake was the lane intrusion.”
Where the crash happened on the roadway isn’t essential to the question of who caused the crash, Hathaway said.
“That is not the hallmark of this case. The hallmark of this case is causation: Whose actions brought about the collision that resulted in the deaths of Michelle Fenimore and Nicholas Carpenter,” Hathaway said.
The jury will continue deliberating at 9 a.m. today.
Jordan Cuddemi can be reached at jcuddemi@vnews.com or 603-727-3248.