Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Was club accountable in 2003 DUI fatality?
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
A civil trial in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court essentially asks whether the operators of Hubbard Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3767 should have stopped serving beer to a man who later drove his car into a group of teenage girls, killing one of them.
Atty. Raymond Tisone told jurors Tuesday in the courtroom of Judge John M. Stuard: “What you have to decide is whether Bill Demidovich was noticeably intoxicated.”
The suit, filed by the family of the dead girl, asks for financial compensation from the club.
Atty. Randil Rudloff, who represents the club, told jurors in opening statements that nearly all the witnesses will testify that 69-year-old Demidovich did not appear to be very drunk.
The accident, which occurred about 7 p.m. April 4, 2003, killed Kyrsten Studer, 14, of Grandview Avenue, Hubbard. It happened along state Route 304 in front of Pine Lakes Golf Club.
Kyrsten and seven other girls age 14 and 15 were celebrating their selection as high school majorettes when the accident occurred, Tisone said.
They had just come from a restaurant and were walking to a nearby bowling alley when six of them were struck by Demidovich’s car, which hit them from behind after leaving the right side of the road.
Tisone said the accident happened on a rainy day, and there were no streetlights near the accident location. The girls chose to walk in front of the golf course instead of crossing the road so they wouldn’t have to cross the road two times, he said.
There was no sidewalk, and the girls were afraid of getting into trouble with the golf course, so they walked fairly close to the road, Tisone said.
At the time the girls were struck, four were in the grass, and four were in the “cinders” just off the asphalt part of the road, Tisone said. The girls were “arm in arm,” two at a time, singing, Tisone said.
Rudloff said the girls were “impossible to see” because it was dark and rainy and because of the girls’ dark clothes. The girls “put themselves in terrible peril” by walking with their backs to oncoming traffic, Rudloff said.
Demidovich, of Hubbard, now 77, was convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide and other charges and spent six years in prison. He was released in February.
Demidovich had started drinking about noon at the Slovenian Workingmen’s Educational Club in Sharon, having between two and five beers, Tisone said.
He got to the VFW about 4 p.m., played pool and drank about six to seven more beers, Tisone said.
“When you add it up, that was a lot of beer from noon to 7 p.m.,” Tisone said. “More likely than not, he was noticeably intoxicated.”
Testimony resumes today.