THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 1, 1995 TAG: 9509010531
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The motorist whose car hit a parked vehicle on the highway, touching off a fire that killed two young girls, may not have been paying attention when the collision occurred, two firefighters testified Thursday in defense of the mother charged in the girls' deaths.
The motorist, William E. Smith, 21, of South Mills, has not been charged. He testified earlier that he was watching the road when his 1994 Ford Mustang rear-ended the 1984 Chrysler New Yorker.
The gas tank exploded. Trapped in the back seat of the car New Yorker were Erika Morgan Johnson, 6, and her sister, 9-year-old Saralisa Danielle.
The girls' mother, Jeannette Collier Johnson, was charged with manslaughter and other crimes because she stopped her car on a dark stretch of U.S. Route 17 near the Pine Lakes Country Club about 1:20 a.m. on May 15, 1994.
Anthony Lambiase Jr., a Pasquotank County volunteer firefighter, told a Superior Court jury Thursday that he talked to a shaken Smith shortly after the crash.
``I asked him, `What the hell happened?' - those were the words I used. He told me he'd bent down to pick up something on the floor of the vehicle and when he looked up he didn't know what happened,'' Lambiase said.
Another firefighter supported Lambiase's statement. Both men said they reported the conversation to their chief that evening and grew concerned this week when nothing had been mentioned in court.
The firefighters' testimony was the entire defense offered by Johnson's lawyer, Charles Busby ofEdenton, on charges against his client of involuntary manslaughter, felony death by motor vehicle and misdemeanor death by motor vehicle.
Smith's actions - and not Johnson's - caused the fire and the girls' deaths, Busby contended during closing arguments Thursday.
``If he doesn't look where he's going, it is almost inevitable. It is almost unavoidable that he is going to hit something,'' Busby said.
``Is she a criminal because he ran into the back of her car, and her children died?''
But prosecutors charged that Johnson was criminally responsible.
Testimony Thursday indicated Johnson and her boyfriend, Juan ``John'' Estaban, left the car unattended and were arguing on the side of the road when the crash took place.
Two paramedics on the scene recounted a badly burned Johnson screaming hysterically after she was found at her parents' home just blocks away from the crash site.
Johnson and Estaban, in an ambulance, kept yelling at each other ``It was your fault for stopping in the middle of the road'' and ``Well, it was your fault for yelling at me,'' paramedic Phyllis Willoughby testified.
The couple had apparently been to a party in the Newland area of Pasquotank County ``and one of them wanted to go home and the other one didn't,'' Willoughby testified.
Another witness testified that she'd served Johnson two or three beers earlier that evening at the V.F.W. lounge.
A blood sample taken more than two hours after the crash indicated Johnson had a blood-alcohol level of .09, which is above the legal limit of .08 considered driving while impaired.
Abandoning the children on a highway in the middle of the night was zeroed in on by Assistant District Attorney Robert Trivette in his closing statement.
``She didn't intend to kill her kids, but it was such a thoughtless and reckless thing to do that, yes . . . it was the criminal cause,'' Trivette said.
The prosecutor also noted that Estaban, described as a ``key player,'' did not appear in court this week to help defend his fiance.
The jury is scheduled to begin deliberations today. MEMO: Staff writer Perry Parks contributed to this report.
by CNB