Man on trial for deadly crash

Oct. 1, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

PALMER - A man who witnesses said drove erratically just before he swerved to the right, hit a guardrail and smashed into a snowmachiner is on trial for negligent homicide.

Joseph S. Obrien, 38, is charged with causing the death of Calvin Toal, 30, on Jan. 6, 2003. Obrien also is charged with driving with a suspended license in a trial that began Tuesday morning and will continue into next week in Palmer Superior Court.

Suzanne Powell, assistant district attorney, said Obrien was a danger on the road when he chose to drive from Anchorage to Nenana in his 1987 Mitsubishi pickup truck. Obrien knew his truck had problems, she said.

&#8220His license was suspended,” Powell said. &#8220The heater wasn't working. He had some difficulty with the brakes and headlights. The defroster wasn't working. It was turned to recirculating air, and ice accumulated on the inside of the windows. He had to scrape the windows.”

Toal and a friend were traveling to Big Lake on their snowmachines and were at Mile 52.6 Parks Hwy., just north of the turn off to Big Lake Road. They were heading south on the shoulder of the northbound lane by the guardrail, Powell said. Three witnesses saw the snowmachiners clearly, and they saw Obrien swerve to the right, strike the guardrail and hit nearly head on with Toal's snowmachine, she said.

&#8220If Obrien had just stayed in his lane, the victim wouldn't have been hit,” Powell said. &#8220The one reason Toal is dead is because the defendant couldn't see and he swerved.”

What happened was a terrible accident, said Lee deGrazia, Obrien's public defender.

&#8220Joe did everything he could to avoid it,” she said. &#8220He had an old truck, but he could see clearly and the brakes worked fine.”

Obrien was going north to stay with family and friends, deGrazia said. He wasn't driving under the influence, and he was alert and aware, she said. Obrien could see a bouncing light and thought it was a headlight in his lane. And, he could see vehicles in the oncoming lane, she said.

&#8220He slowed, pulled over, and the snowmachine hit him,” deGrazia said. &#8220I expect the evidence to show the accident wasn't Joe's fault. He did what he was supposed to do when you see a blinding headlight coming at you.”

Lalaneya Wilkes was a passenger in a full size Dodge pickup truck following behind Obrien's truck. Her then-fiance drove and her two children were in the back seat as they headed from Mile 49 Parks Hwy. to their cabin at Big Lake. They followed a &#8220dark, little, older pickup truck” for about two miles. The little truck with the MUDTUF vanity plate seemed to be swerving more than usual, Wilkes said.

&#8220I said to my husband, ‘What's he doing? Stay back,'” she said from the witness stand. &#8220I thought maybe he was intoxicated.”

Their Dodge truck was stopped in the left turn lane of the highway, waiting for traffic to clear, when she saw Obrien's truck &#8220just swerve into the snowmachine,” she said. They all saw the &#8220huge impact and a body flew in the air,” she said.

Photos of the accident scene showed the 1996 Skidoo with the seat sheared off, and the front end looked like a yellow plastic jigsaw puzzle. The middle of the truck's grill was smashed.

Sgt. Robert Langendorfer, an Alaska State Trooper, said he arrived at the crash site about four minutes after dispatch called. His investigation of the crash showed Obrien's truck hit the guardrail before it ricocheted back to the left and hit Toal's snowmachine, he said.

&#8220When I arrived, there was a significant amount of frost on all the windows,” Langendorfer said of Obrien's truck. &#8220The side windows were obscured and there were scrape marks on the inside of the windshield.”

There was actually more frost than was visible on the photos Powell showed the jury, he said. The amount of ice could &#8220absolutely” obstruct the driver's vision, he said.

The jury heard a recording of Obrien telling Langendorfer he had to scrape the windshield about every half hour.

Dr. Franc Fallico, state medical examiner, said the &#8220massive blunt force” of the impact killed Toal. He listed the major and minor injuries he discovered at autopsy as Toal's mother, Katrina, quietly took notes to bring back to her family in Washington.

&#8220It did a lot of bad things to his body,” Fallico said of the victim.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.