Witness recalls comforting toddler at accident scene

LEXINGTON -- A 3-year-old girl thrown out of the path of a speeding car 2 1⁄2 years ago wanted nothing more than the mother who sacrificed her own life to save her daughter's.

One of the first people on the scene of the accident that killed Kasey Jo Warner of rural Arapahoe on Oct. 3, 2007, told Furnas County Judge James Doyle IV, attorneys and jurors during the second day of testimony Wednesday in Lexington that Gentry Warner was crying and had a bump on her head when he picked her up off of River Road southwest of Arapahoe. Shawn Pruitt, who said he had been helping his brother pick beans in a nearby field that warm late-autumn day, choked on tears, "She wanted her mom."

Jennifer Franssen, an EMT with the Holbrook, Edison and Arapahoe rescue squad, said that Gentry jumped out of Pruitt's van, "and put a death grip on my neck. She was scared ... she was shaking." Franssen said she asked Gentry if she could look at her injuries. Franssen said, "She squeezed tighter and said, 'I want my mommy'."

Gentry's mother lay dead, on River Road, between the four-wheeler that Gentry had ridden beside her jogging mother and the blue Camaro driven by Herchel Huff, whom a witness Tuesday said had spent the afternoon of Oct. 3 drinking in bars in Oxford.

Huff has pleaded not guilty to motor vehicle homicide (which includes the charge of driving while intoxicated), tampering with a witness and refusal to submit to a chemical test. A jury of 12 is listening in the Dawson County courthouse in Lexington to witnesses and pondering evidence in the trial expected to last through Friday.

Shawn's brother Mike Pruitt, who left his combine to help, described the smell of alcohol on Huff's breath, said that Huff was stumbling. Lead investigator Furnas County Deputy Lee Lozo handcuffed Huff because of the smell of alcoholic beverages on Huff. Two other deputies described in testimony Wednesday the smell of alcohol on Huff.

Lozo said he detected "a strong smell" of alcohol as he approached Huff on the accident scene. "He was freakin' out ... very concerned about what had just happened," Lozo said. "When he indicated he was the driver, I placed him in handcuffs to continue a DUI (driving while intoxicated) investigation," Lozo said. "He was not going to be allowed to leave because I believed alcohol to be one factor in the accident -- due to the smell (of alcohol) and he admitted to driving, yes."

Lozo said he did not perform a field sobriety test or a preliminary breath test on the scene because of the chaos and the emotions on the scene. "And I was the only officer there at the time. There was lots that needed to be done," he said.

Lozo's interrogation of Huff on the scene ended, Lozo said, when Huff told him he was done talking until he talked to his attorney. Lozo said, "When the right to attorney is invoked, I stop."

Lozo told Richard Calkins, Huff's attorney, that he did not talk to bar patrons or bartenders in Oxford, because most likely there was nothing there that would have helped the investigation. Calkins asked Lozo that if he had gone to the bars, would it have been possible that "a bartender may have been able to give some information that could have exonerated Mr. Huff."

On the way from the accident scene to Cambridge Memorial Hospital for the blood draw, Deputy Vernon Levisay said Huff told him, "I'm f--ed," "quite a few times."

Levisay described having to lean Huff against his patrol cruiser to stabilize him before he put him inside the car. "His eyes were bloodshot and glazed over. His gate was askew," Levisay said. "He staggered a bit. I could smell alcohol throughout the transport" to the Cambridge hospital. Levisay said he had to clean his cruiser after Huff vomited in it.

Levisay said that Huff asked him, "What can I do?" "I told him, 'I can't discuss the situation with you'," Levisay said. He said that Huff's speech was slurred.

"When you met with Mr. Huff, he was very anxious, distraught, crying," Calkins said. He asked Levisay if the bloodshot, red eyes might have been because Huff was crying.

Could the utterances that Huff made in the backseat of Levisay's cruiser, to himself and to Levisay, have been Mr. Huff asking about the little girl, Calkins asked Levisay. "It's possible," Levisay said. "But I don't recall specifically. " Levisay said that he "couldn't make out" all the verbalizing coming from Huff in the back of the squad car.

At the hospital, Levisay said that prior to the blood draw, he read, verbatim, the post arrest chemical advisement form to Huff and then handed the form to Huff to read for himself. Refusing the test can be a separate charge, Levisay said he told Huff. Levisay testified, "I opened the (blood draw) kit and Mr. Huff changed his mind, and said we couldn't take his blood."

Levisay continued, "I explained to him that refusal is a separate charge. He went back and forth. He was compliant and then indecisive."

Levisay said he repeated the process, and still Huff said they were not going to draw his blood. Levisay said he noted on the form that Huff refused to consent to the test, and the certified nurse's assistant signed it as a witness.

Levisay told Calkins that, no, he does not recall Huff asking for a breath test or a urine test instead of a blood draw with a needle.

Levisay said he was taking Huff to the jail in Beaver City when he transferred custody to Deputy Shawn Rupp on Highway 283 just south of Arapahoe, after Huff refused the blood alcohol content test.

Deputy Rupp said the smell of alcoholic beverages "was very obvious" when he assumed custody. Rupp said that Huff told him that his (Huff's) life would never be the same because he killed that woman.

Levisay said he returned to the Cambridge hospital to talk to Gentry Warner and to do a blood draw on Ryan Markwartt, the friend of Huff who drank beers and mixed drinks with Huff in Oxford during the afternoon of Oct. 3, 2007. Markwartt was not indecisive, Levisay testified. Lozo testified that he later learned that Markwartt's blood alcohol content was 0.15, almost double the legal limit.

Furnas County Sheriff Kurt Kapperman testified that, arriving on the scene, he also acted as county coroner because County Attorney Tom Patterson was out of town. He said he pulled back a blanket that covered Kasey Jo's body, and found no pulse. He described "substantial" injures to her entire body. Kapperman said he did not deal with Huff on the scene. The next morning, Kapperman said, Huff appeared sober and showed no injuries, nor did he complain of any injuries or ask for medical attention.

Kapperman said that on the night of the accident, he discovered damage to the driver's side of Huff's Camaro that had come to a rest in a grassy field on the north side of River Road.

Kapperman said that at about 8 p.m., he contacted the Nebraska State Patrol to request the help of its accident reconstructionist, Brian Buxbaum of Holdrege.

Buxbaum testified that he was on the scene in about an hour.

On the scene, Buxbaum said, he noticed double-wheel skid marks that turned into four-wheel skid marks, and into furrowing -- when the tires and rims cut sideways into dirt -- as Huff's Camaro left the roadway and entered the grassy field. He also saw "faint tracks" made by the "knobby" tires of Gentry's four-wheeler, then sitting near the south ditch, he said, and Kasey Jo's body, face down, under a blanket on the north edge of the road. He, too, described massive injuries to Kasey Jo's body.

Buxbaum described, and photographs corroborated, damages to the left front of Huff's Camaro, to the fender, hood and door panel. Buxbaum pointed out a photograph of a dent on the quarter-panel between the left front tire and the door panel, "smears and smudge marks" on the driver's door, and blood on the car's undercarriage.

Buxbaum said he believed that Kasey Jo Warner was struck by the driver's door of Huff's Camaro. He said it appeared she was sucked under the car, drug along the undercarriage and dislodged near the rear of the car when it entered the north ditch.

Buxbaum testified that by using measurements taken at the scene, studying the car's skid marks and utilizing a Vericom 3000 accelerometer, he determined Huff was driving 72-84 miles an hour when he struck and killed Kasey Jo Warner after she threw her daughter out of harm's way.

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Testimony ended at 5:05 p.m. Judge Doyle told attorneys to meet in his chambers this morning at 8:30 a.m., to determine how to conclude the trial by the end of the week.

Testimony reconvened at 9 a.m. this morning.