Motorist Charged With Negligent Homicide

In Hawleyville Accident

By Andrew Gorosko

Police this week arrested a Waterbury woman on a warrant, charging her with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, and three other vehicular offenses, stemming from the death of Ridgefield man following a January 14  accident in Hawleyville.

Police said they served the warrant about 6:30 am Tuesday, August 17, against Trisia Hernandez, 27, at her MacArthur Drive home in Waterbury. Ms Hernandez also was charged with failure to avoid colliding with a pedestrian, failure to drive in the proper lane, and traveling unreasonably fast.

A conviction for negligent homicide with a motor vehicle carries a maximum fine of $1,000, or up to six months in jail, or both.

Police transported Ms Hernandez to the Newtown police station, where she was held on bail for arraignment on the charges that day in Danbury Superior Court.

Ms Hernandez did not enter pleas to the four pending charges at her arraignment. Her next court appearance is scheduled for September 1. Ms Hernandez is free on $10,000 bail. Attorney Mark Johnson has been appointed as her public defender.

Pedestrian Kenneth C. Bailin, 51, of Crest Road in Ridgefield died as a result of injuries he received in the January 14 accident.

At about 2:38 pm on January 14, Mr Bailin was outside of his 2002 GMC Sonoma pickup truck, which was parked on the paved northbound road shoulder of Hawleyville Road (Route 25), near its intersection with Covered Bridge Road, as Ms Hernandez was driving a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire coupe northward there, according to police. The Pontiac then struck both Bailin and the pickup truck.

Mr Bailin received serious head and leg injuries in the accident. He was pronounced dead the next day at Danbury Hospital, where he had been taken for treatment following the accident.

After the accident, Ms Hernandez was treated for head and neck pain at Danbury Hospital and then released.

Investigation

Town police conducted a lengthy investigation into the accident, which was the first fatal accident that had occurred since April 2006 on the local roads which are under the town police’s jurisdiction. Officer Jeffrey Silver was the lead investigator.

In a court affidavit through which he sought the arrest warrant, Ofc Silver described his investigation into the accident.

At 2:38 pm on January 14, Ofc Silver received a report of a motor vehicle accident on Hawleyville Road, after which he went to the scene. Hawleyville firefighters responded to the accident.

On arriving, Ofc Silver saw the seriously injured Mr Bailin lying on the road, unconscious and bleeding from a severed leg. Mr Bailin’s GMC pickup truck was on the road’s northbound shoulder and had heavy damage to its rear end.

The Pontiac coupe was positioned some distance north of the pickup truck. The Pontiac was facing north in the southbound lane. Ms Hernandez was drifting in and out of consciousness.

Mr Bailin’s ensuing death was caused by massive head injuries and multiple traumatic blunt injuries, according to the medical examiner.

At 6 pm on January 14, Ms Hernandez provided police with a voluntary written sworn statement on the accident.

Also, police interviewed several witnesses to the Hawleyville Road accident in investigating the fatal crash.

Additionally, on January 21, a judge signed a search-and-seizure warrant for a “sensing and diagnostic module” which was part of the Pontiac’s equipment. A state police technical unit retrieved electronic data from that module to provide evidence to town police for their investigation.

The posted speed limit in the area where the accident occurred is 30 miles per hour. The data contained in the electronic module listed the speeds at which the Pontiac was traveling in the moments before its airbag deployed as the accident occurred.

Five seconds before airbag deployment occurred, the Pontiac was traveling at 44 miles per hour.

That speed increased to 46 mph at four seconds before airbag deployment. The vehicle was traveling at 47 mph at three seconds before the airbag triggered. At two seconds before deployment, the Pontiac was traveling at 49 mph. At one second before the airbag triggered, the vehicle’s speed dropped to 17 mph, according to the affidavit.

 Police also had the Pontiac inspected to check on whether the vehicle had any equipment problems.

“The inspection revealed no mechanical defects which would have contributed to the crash,” according to Ofc Silver.

Also, an inspection of the GMC truck revealed no mechanical defects.

An analysis of conditions at the accident scene indicated that the right-front tire of the Pontiac was about 3.25 feet to the right of the road’s white shoulder line, also known as the fog line, in the area of impact.     

In that area, the two-lane Hawleyville Road is approximately 40 feet wide. The northbound lane is about 13 feet wide. The northbound road shoulder is about six feet wide between the shoulder line and the curb.

Ofc Silver noted that the truck was parked on the northbound shoulder at the time of the accident and that, “All four tires were to the right of the fog line.”

An ensuing medical analysis found that there was no alcohol in Ms Hernandez’s system at the time of the accident.

In the interview which Ms Hernandez gave to police after the accident on January 14, she stated, “I was driving normal, approximately 30 miles per hour. I saw a vehicle stopped on the right side of the road, off of the roadway. When I first saw the stopped vehicle, I didn’t see anybody. When I was very close to the stopped (vehicle), a person stepped away from the vehicle into the roadway, about four feet.”

“I tried to avoid the person by turning away, towards the other lane. When I did this, something hit my windshield, very long,” she added.

Ms Hernandez later told police that she had applied the Pontiac’s brakes when she spotted Mr Bailin.

Ms Hernandez told police that she then called her employer, Bethel Health Care Rehabilitation Center, on her cellphone and asked them to call police because she had been involved in an accident.

“After I called, I passed out,” she added.

Police took possession of the cellphone as evidence in their investigation in seeking to learn whether cellphone use had been a factor in the crash. State police electronically analyzed the cellphone to learn whether it was in use when the accident occurred. 

According to the affidavit, Ms Hernandez told police that she had taken a dose of her prescription medication known as OxyContin at 5 am on the day of the accident.