CENTENNIAL — The girlfriend of a man charged with causing a collision that killed three people in 2008 testified Thursday that the man’s cousin also was in the vehicle when it crashed.
Authorities say Francis Hernandez was alone in a Suburban the evening of Sept. 4, 2008, when he hit a small pickup, sending it careening into an Aurora ice-cream parlor.
The crash killed the driver of the pickup, Patricia Guntharp, 49, and her passenger, Debra Serecky, 51. Marten Kudlis, 3, who was inside the Baskin-Robbins on South Havana Street with his mother, also died.
During testimony in Arapahoe County District Court, Brenda Aleman, Hernandez’s girlfriend, said that his cousin, Christian Hernandez, 22, also was in the vehicle at the time of the crash. Defense attorneys have suggested the cousin was the driver.
This conflicts with Aleman’s testimony Wednesday, as well as with what she originally told police after the accident — that Francis Hernandez was by himself in the Suburban.
Christian Hernandez cannot be called to testify because he was slain in June at the apartment complex where he, his cousin and Aleman lived in the 9600 block of East Girard Avenue in Denver.
When asked by defense attorney Chris Baumann whether she knew the penalties for lying under oath, Aleman replied: “I’m not lying. I’m telling the truth about the whole thing.”
Her testimony also contradicts statements made by witness Brandon Hickerson, who drove past the accident just after it happened.
Hickerson said the Suburban was on its side and that a man he later identified as Francis Hernandez jumped out of the passenger-side window.
Hickerson did not see anyone else leave the Suburban.
“I looked right at him, and he even looked at me,” Hickerson testified. “He was close enough he could have touched my car.”
Aurora police Officer Erick Ortiz testified that when he interviewed Aleman shortly after the accident, she twice told him that her boyfriend was not the driver.
Her story changed after she learned she could be charged with being an accessory to the crime, Ortiz said.
Police also testified that on the night of the crash, Francis Hernandez, who was 23 at the time, had cuts and bruises that were consistent with being in an accident. He also had abrasions on both his arms, likely from an air bag deploying.
Hernandez, who is in the United States illegally, faces 19 charges, including vehicular homicide.
Before the ice-cream shop collision, he had been arrested or cited 16 times for traffic offenses but was never deported.
The Kudlis family has filed a lawsuit against Hernandez and the Guntharp family.
Investigators say Guntharp was high on methamphetamine and crossed a double yellow line turning from northbound Havana into the strip mall where the Baskin-Robbins is.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com
