Defense asks court to suppress blood evidence in deadly crash

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The attorney for Donald P. Williams Jr., 45, the Austintown man charged with crashing his semi tractor into a vehicle containing four Marine Corps recruits, killing three of them, will ask for blood evidence to be suppressed.

Atty. J. Gerald Ingram told Judge Andrew Logan on Tuesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court he will ask for the sample of Williams’ blood taken at St. Joseph Health Center to be removed from evidence.

Ingram did not say why that evidence should be suppressed but will explain more in a later court filing.

Prosecutors say Valium and a similar drug, Nordiazepam, were in the blood that was drawn from Williams the day of the accident.

Ingram filed a motion Tuesday that asked the court to strike certain language from the superceding indictment filed against Williams by the Trumbull County prosecutor’s office.

The indictment, which describes the nature of the alleged offenses, contained “a litany of allegations that do not relate to any of the essential elements of the offenses set forth in the indictment,” Ingram said in the filing.

Adding unnecessary remarks — known as surplusage — “merely confuses the issues and ultimately prejudices the defendant,” Ingram said.

For example, the indictment says Williams was “‘drug drunk’ and listening to heavy-metal music” at the time of the crash, Ingram said.

The indictment also says Williams failed to stop his truck after it struck the back of the Marines’ vehicle and “continued to plow down several more vehicles, failing to come to a complete stop until traveling 581 feet after his initial impact.”

“Any language that is not relevant to the prosecution, such as ‘plow down,’ should be stricken from the superceding indictment,” Ingram said.

In court, Ingram told Judge Logan he will be busy with other criminal cases in the coming months, including one capital-murder case, and he will not be available until April for another hearing.

Judge Logan set the next hearing for 9 a.m. April 15. Williams is free on $50,000 bond.

The March 31, 2010, accident on state Route 5 just west of Warren, killed Zachary A. Nolen, 19, of Mineral Ridge and Newton Falls, Joshua A. Sherbourne, 21, of Southington, and Michael T. Theodore Jr., 19, of Howland.

If convicted on the charges Williams faces — six counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, six counts of aggravated vehicular assault and one count of drug possession — he could get 40 years in prison.