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Wife’s 911 call leads day 4 of Dr. Yurich trial
By Justin Wier
YOUNGSTOWN
The prosecution on Thursday played a 911 call Angelina Rodriguez, the wife of Dr. Joseph Yurich, made on the night of a fatal Berlin Reservoir boat crash in 2015.
“My husband hit a boat on his way home, and I want to tell the cops,” she told a dispatcher. “He hit a fishing boat, and I don’t know if anyone else was injured.”
The call came in at 1:34 a.m. The accident occurred just after midnight.
“He doesn’t know what to do. He wasn’t even sure if he hit something. He’s freaking out,” she said on the call.
Dr. Yurich, 38, of Poland, faces several charges stemming from the May 9, 2015, crash that left one man dead and another man injured.
Lt. Gregory Johnson, chief of detectives for the Portage County Sheriff’s department, responded to the call.
Dr. Yurich told Johnson he believed he had hit a rock, he didn’t stop after the accident and he had been traveling at about 25 mph.
The speed limit on Berlin Reservoir at night is 10 mph.
Dr. Yurich also told Johnson he had consumed alcohol.
“He said he had a couple beers, and he said he had some beers,” Johnson said. “I never got an exact number.”
Johnson said Dr. Yurich became very emotional when he was told someone died in the crash.
The prosecution also called Dave Ford, who investigated the incident for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Ford recovered flesh and hair from the front of Dr. Yurich’s boat that a state Bureau of Criminal Investigations expert said was consistent with the DNA profile of Neal Cuppett, 58, of Akron, who died in the crash. He also recovered lights from the fishing boat Cuppett was on when the crash occurred.
A BCI investigator said the light on the front of the boat was lit during a substantial impact. At least one of the filaments in the light at the boat’s rear was also on at the time of an impact, the investigator said. The second filament was inconclusive.
The defense had asked several witnesses who heard or responded to the crash whether the fishing boat’s lights were on when they arrived at the scene.
The trial will resume today at 9 a.m. when the prosecution plans to call its final two witnesses, the coroner and an accident reconstruction expert. Then the defense will begin to call witnesses.
The trial, which began Monday, will continue into next week.