THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300563
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
William E. ``Billy'' Smith and his girlfriend had spent the evening at a high school prom and were headed to a beach house in Creswell in the early hours of May 15, 1994.
Then tragedy struck.
As Smith drove along U.S. 17 into Elizabeth City, his brand-new Ford Mustang hit another car, which burst into flames. Two young sisters strapped into the rear seats were killed.
``I honestly didn't know what I'd hit,'' Smith, 21, said Tuesday during the first day of testimony in the manslaughter trial of the girls' mother, Jeannette Collier Johnson.
Johnson, 33, is charged with involuntarily killing Erika Morgan Johnson, 6, and Saralisa Danielle Johnson, 9. She also is accused of operating a motor vehicle while impaired and parking her vehicle on the five-lane highway, causing the crash.
Testimony Tuesday in Pasquotank County Superior Court indicated Smith was driving south on U.S. 17 when his car struck Johnson's 1984 Chrysler New Yorker.
Smith, who works at the Ford Motor Co. plant in Norfolk, and Laura Jean Bersticker, 19, had been to Bersticker's senior prom at the Norfolk Marriott earlier in the evening.
The couple had stopped at Smith's house in South Mills and were heading to Washington County when the crash occurred around 1:20 a.m. in front of the Pine Lakes Country Club just outside Elizabeth City.
Bersticker said she was asleep when the cars collided and awoke when the car bounced around after almost flipping over. A police report indicated that she suffered a broken ankle.
Smith said he had not consumed any alcoholic beverages that evening and had just turned off his car's cruise control, which was set at about 60 mph, as he approached a 45 mph zone.
``I was just driving and all of the sudden we had an impact,'' Smith said. After the couple got out of their car, Smith heard a woman screaming that her babies were on fire.
Smith rushed to the New Yorker, about 10 feet away, and tried to reach the trapped children, both students at Northside Elementary School. He began to cry Tuesday as he recounted his failed attempt to rescue them before the car exploded.
``What he found was a terrible sight, and he's still trying to deal with that today,'' said Robert Trivette, first judicial assistant district attorney, in an opening statement earlier.
Johnson's attorney, Charles Busby of Edenton, asked a jury of five women and seven men to consider whether his client was criminally responsible for deaths.
``If you don't have a working definition of `tragic,' you will have one after this case,'' Busby said.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITIES ARREST TRIAL by CNB