A passenger acknowledged Monday that Sandra Jacobson’s pickup may have swerved across two lanes of Peña Boulevard the day it collided with a taxi van — an admission that fits with a key assertion made by prosecutors.
The point could be critical for jurors, who are expected to get the case today, as they try to sort out exactly what happened on Jan. 28, 2009, in a crash that took the lives of two Connecticut librarians.
Prosecutors alleged that a drunken Jacobson lost control in the left lane, swerved into the right lane and hit the taxi van, sending it into a fatal rollover crash. Jacobson contended that she was sober, lost control of her pickup after one of her dogs jumped over the front seat and never went out of the left lane.
That was, essentially, the same story Erin Sims, 50, told when she testified Monday afternoon.
“She corrected in our lane,” Sims said under questioning from deputy district attorney Darryl Shockley.
But after Shockley pointed to written and videotaped statements she made the day of the crash in which she described swerving from the left lane and across the right lane, she relented.
“There’s a lot of things that come back to your mind after fear and stuff,” she said. “I thought we had corrected — later on looking at it, I thought we had corrected in the left lane, but it’s possible from what I said in there that we corrected on the right.”
Jacobson faces two counts of vehicular homicide and four other charges in the crash, which ended with the taxi van rollover, killing Connecticut librarians Kate McClelland, 71, and Kathleen Krasniewicz, 54.
Prosecutors allege that Jacobson, drunk and driving more than 80 mph, lost control of her pickup, hit the van, and then sped off. Among their evidence: A smear of paint from the left-front fender of the taxi that was left on the right-rear truck bumper, next to other fresh damage.
The day’s testimony began with Jacobson returning to the witness stand.
She maintained that she was not intoxicated as she drove toward Denver International Airport.
“I wasn’t drinking earlier in the day whatsoever,” she said.
She also repeated the story she told in her first round of testimony last Friday — that one of her dogs jumped over the seat, causing her to lose control, that she gathered it up and drove on to the airport without realizing she’d been anywhere near another vehicle. At the airport, she said again, she downed a “road pop” — a bottle of Vitamin Water laced with banana schnapps.
The lead prosecutor, Christine Washburn, attempted to chip away at Jacobson’s credibility and story.
She questioned Jacobson about a Federal Trade Commission ruling that barred her from “multi-level marketing” after a case in Maryland in which she was subjected to an $804,813 judgment if she attempted to return to the business.
Jurors also heard from Dr. Kathey Verdeal, a toxicologist retained by the defense, who said that Jacobson’s story of drinking after the crash could account for the results of blood tests administered later that afternoon.
Prosecutors then recalled their own toxicology expert, Cynthia Burbach, who agreed it was possible — but also said it was “absolutely” possible that Jacobson could have consumed booze before the accident and ended up with the alcohol readings found in her blood hours later.
