Bartender testifies in Russell trial
KELSO, Wash. – A bartender who served Frederick Russell testified Tuesday that Russell didn’t appear intoxicated shortly before he was involved in a crash that killed three college students, and in fact caught a math error the bartender made on his tab.
“He looked at his total and noticed I was wrong. … I recall he did it pretty quick,” said Levi Neufeld, who said he served Russell two beers at the My Office Tavern hours before the collision. Neufeld said Russell was a “regular” at the tavern, and played pool that evening. He said he was surprised to hear Russell was involved in an alleged drunken driving accident later in the evening.
Russell is on trial on vehicular homicide and vehicular assault charges. He’s accused of being drunk, speeding and trying to pass in a no-passing zone when his vehicle slammed head-on into another car on June 4, 2001, on the highway between Pullman and Moscow.
Killed were Brandon Clements, 22, of Wapato, a Washington State University senior, and fellow WSU students Stacy Morrow, 21, of Milton, and Ryan Sorensen, 21, of Westport. Three others were badly injured.
Eric Haynes, now 30, of Spokane, was the only person in the students’ car who walked away without serious injuries.
Haynes testified Monday that Clements, who was driving, didn’t have time to react to a sport utility vehicle careening toward their car.
He swerved to the right, but “there wasn’t much room to go, or time,” Haynes told a Cowlitz County jury hearing the case against Russell, who was also a WSU student.
“For sure, he saved my life,” said Haynes, who was sitting in the passenger seat.
Jurors also heard Tuesday from the three people in Clements’ car who were badly injured.
Kara Eichelsdoerfer, 28, said the wreck broke her collarbone, pelvis, vertebrae and several ribs, and caused a concussion that impaired her ability to function normally for at least a year.
“If I wrote, my hand would uncontrollably start to shake,” she said, and it took three months before she could walk again.
Sameer Ranade, 27, told jurors he recalled climbing into the car carrying the students, but said the next thing he knew, he was waking up in Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.
He had a crushed pelvis and ribs, a ruptured aorta and a kidney laceration. He was on a ventilator and stayed at Harborview for 25 days, followed by nearly two months in a nursing home because he couldn’t walk.
John “Matt” Wagner said he still must regularly visit a chiropractor. He suffered an injured spine, bruised organs and a broken collarbone and ribs.
Washington State Patrol Trooper Michael Murphy had testified Monday that while interviewing Russell in the hospital, the defendant had the odor of alcohol on his breath and bloodshot, watery eyes and that his account of the accident – that an oncoming sports car veered into his lane and sent him off the road to the right – did not match the scene.
Russell’s attorney, Francisco Duarte, noted that Murphy did not give Russell a sobriety test in the hospital and that nobody interviewed reported Russell as having slurred speech or delayed motor skills.