BATH — A Maine State Police trooper who inspected the Jeep that was pulling a haunted hayride that crashed in 2014, killing a 17-year-old Oakland girl and injuring more than 20 others, testified Friday that the vehicle was not safe for travel on any surface.
Citing extensive wear and tear on the Jeep, Trooper David York compared its use that night to a game of Russian roulette.
“It’s not if (a mechanical failure was going to happen),” York said. “It was when it would happen. It was bound to happen.”
York is a trained vehicle inspector who examined the CJ-5 Jeep that David Brown, 56, of South Paris, was driving on the night of the accident. Brown, who was employed by the Mechanic Falls farm where the fatal crash occurred in October 2014, is standing trial on a misdemeanor charge of reckless conduct. Messalonskee High School student Cassidy Charette died in the accident.
Brown requested a venue change and is being tried in Sagadahoc County Superior Court in Bath. Androscoggin County prosecutors are trying to prove that Brown consciously disregarded the risks associated with the Jeep he used to tow the hayride.
But Brown, who will take the witness stand in his own defense later in the four-day trial, maintains that he was unaware of the Jeep’s mechanical issues, his attorney said in opening remarks Thursday.
On Friday, the second day of the trial, jurors also heard testimony from the state trooper who weighed the trailer that Brown was towing and an investigator from the state Fire Marshal’s Office who interviewed Brown after the crash.
The investigator, Christopher Stanford, said that Brown, a commercially licensed driver, told him he had driven the haunted hayride course about 100 times in the last couple of years.
Other drivers at the farm used tractors, but Brown chose to use the Jeep in October 2014 because it was heated inside and it was a cold night, and Brown also liked its appearance, Stanford said.
Brown told Stanford he already had driven the course three times on the night of the accident.
But after the trailer Brown was pulling on the third rotation got a flat tire, employees of the farm hooked a different trailer onto the Jeep, Stanford said. That’s the trailer Brown was pulling when the crash occurred.
Brown did not specify if he helped change the trailer, Stanford said.
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