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Judge to rule on evidence in vehicular homicide
YOUNGSTOWN
A judge will decide if evidence collected against a Canfield woman charged with vehicular homicide will be permitted at trial.
Rachel Zorger, 25, of Calla Road, appeared for a suppression hearing Thursday morning before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Zorger, through her attorney, Mark Lavelle, is attempting to have all blood work drawn at St. Elizabeth Health Center and certain statements made to police inadmissible at trial.
Zorger is charged with two felony counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and one misdemeanor count of child endangering in the killing of her unborn child and a woman while reportedly driving drunk earlier this year.
Darla Schumacher, 55, of Detwiler Road, was killed just after 5 p.m. April 12 when the car she was driving collided with Zorger’s car. The accident took place on Detwiler just south of Western Reserve Road in Beaver Township.
Zorger, who was six months pregnant at the time, drove left of center, causing the accident, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
The patrol said she had a blood-alcohol level of 0.259. The legal limit in Ohio is 0.08.
Trooper Jeff Turnau, a criminalist with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, testified that blood samples submitted by Zorger had been tested for blood-alcohol content.
Turnau also gave the dates the samples were received and testified the blood samples were refrigerated and assigned a test number immediately upon being delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.
Turnau, on cross-examination, admitted he did not personally place the samples in refrigeration, and he could not say if the samples had been properly refrigerated when collected at St. Elizabeth Health Center.
He also said there was a urine sample submitted for testing but could not say what happened to that sample.
Natasha Frenchko, the assistant county prosecutor now handling the case, wanted to present additional witnesses in the suppression hearing, but after a court ruling last week, that may never happen.
Judge Krichbaum, during a previously scheduled suppression hearing, ruled that only Turnau would be heard in the matter because J. Michael Thompson, the assistant county prosecutor previously handling the case, refused to go forward with the hearing at that time even though several witnesses were present and ready to testify.
The judge ordered that anyone present at the previous Sept. 7 hearing and not put on the stand would be barred from testifying in the suppression hearing. Prosecutors put no one on the stand at that hearing.
Frenchko told the court her colleague had a medical issue at the time and could not go forward with the Sept. 7 hearing. She asked the judge to reconsider his order and allow witnesses from the St. Elizabeth medical lab and others to be heard.
Turnau was permitted to testify because he was in another court at the time of the last hearing and unable to attend the hearing.
Judge Krichbaum reminded prosecutors that employees from St. Elizabeth were present and ready to go forward at the previous hearing, but prosecutors refused to move forward. He also reminded prosecutors the hearing had been postponed four times as of the previous Sept. 7 hearing.
Kenneth Cardinal, an assistant county prosecutor, described Thompson’s actions as a “meltdown” and asked the court to impose a different form of sanction instead of barring testimony from the potential witnesses.
The judge said the order is not a punishment. He said an opportunity to present the witnesses was given, and prosecutors chose not to present them.
The judge said he will take the prosecution’s request to hear the testimony under advisement and allowed prosecutors to gather the testimony out of earshot of the court. He will make a ruling at a later date.