GREEN RIVER — The vehicular homicide trial for Haitian truck driver accused of killing a Wyoming EMT while driving on a commercial driver’s license started Thursday in Green River.
Prosecutors accuse Saviol Saint Jean of recklessly plowing a commercial truck into two emergency medical personnel who were responding to a crash on Interstate 80 three years ago — killing one and severely injuring the other.
Saint Jean is on trial in Sweetwater County District Court on one count of aggravated vehicular homicide (punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $10,000 in fines); one count of aggravated assault (up to 10 years and $10,000); and a third count of not moving away from emergency vehicles (up to $200 in fines).
Sweetwater County Deputy Attorney TahNee Alton and Saviol’s defense attorney Joseph Hampton presented opposite theories of the case during their opening statements to the jury.
From Alton’s vantage, the case is simple: Saint Jean disregarded the emergency lights of an ambulance on a crash scene where trucks’ hazard lights were also lit, and smashed into two people and an ambulance, causing one death.
Hampton’s position rather, is that this crash scene grew complex quickly over a series of chain reactions, culminating in Saint Jean struggling to catch up with an onslaught of stimuli and decisions.
The jury consists of eight men and five women, but one of those (unbeknownst to him or her) is an alternate juror who will be dismissed before deliberations, unless he or she is asked to fill in for a true juror who is unable to serve.
Roughly, The Scene
Before 4 a.m. on Dec. 21, 2022, a red pickup pulling a trailer lost control and jackknifed across the road while heading west on I-80, court documents say.
The original affidavit says the pickup caught some black ice. It’s uncertain if prosecutors still believe that to be true: Hampton on Thursday emphasized a sign ahead of the crash point that said the road may be slick in spots.
The state’s second witness, a truck driver from Utah named Andrew Gibbs who was involved in the scene, testified that the road was dry.
A blue Kenworth semitrailer with the company name Rey Logistics approached. Its driver was a trucker named Osvaldo Herrera-Pupo who could not speak much English, his co-driver, Brian Perez, testified on Thursday.
Herrera-Pupo told Rawlins Police Department Sgt. Christopher Craig that morning that he was traveling in the right-hand lane behind a semi going no more than 40 mph.
The truck in front of him swerved to the right shoulder, and after that, Herrera-Pupo saw the trailer across the road and hit the brakes — but he was too close and struck the trailer, the affidavit says.
Gibbs, who was driving a semi for the company SAIA, noticed the collision and swerved to the left-hand side into the median to keep from colliding.
Someone called 911, and about 10 minutes after Herrera-Pupo hit the trailer, an ambulance arrived, the affidavit says.
The emergency medical responders — Tyeler Harris and Tiffany Gruetzmacher — were checking on the people who’d been in the crash, court documents add.
As the two walked back to their ambulance, which was parked in the left lane westward of the truck Herrera-Pupo had been driving, Saint Jean sped into the scene going at least 55 mph and plowed into them, the affidavit alleges.
Shaken
The state’s first two witnesses both said the wreck left them shaken.
Brian Perez, now 24, was asleep in the cab of the truck Herrera-Pupo had been driving when the latter crashed into the trailer. The impact woke Perez and flung him toward the front of the truck, he said Thursday under questioning by Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe.
He’d been driving commercial vehicles for about 10 months at that point, he testified, and he had to take a break from the trade as a result of the incident.
The ambulance’s lights on scene were “pretty bright,” said Perez, who addressed the court from the witness stand while wearing a black collared shirt and black slacks. He spoke in a quiet, subdued tone.
Perez testified that by the time Saint Jean approached the scene, Perez was standing outside his truck cab near the driver’s side headlight.
The speed of Saint Jean’s approach gusted a wind that knocked him backward, said Perez, adding that he couldn’t estimate the exact speed.
His Memory …
Hampton said this testimony contradicted what Perez told Craig in an interview right after the crash.
He gained permission from Sweetwater County District Court Judge Richard Lavery to play a video of that interview in front of the jury. In the video, Perez told Craig that during the final crash he was standing, rather, on the left side of the road beyond the yellow line.
Erramouspe questioned whether this was relevant.
Hampton countered that, “it goes to his credibility as a witness — and his memory,” he told the judge while the jury was dismissed from the room briefly.
And the contradiction, Hampton added, could indicate that Perez and another person “could have possibly been in the way — pedestrians on the side of the road,” which would have complicated Saint Jean’s snap decision-making.
“I’m not seeing them being in the way,” said Lavery, who had reviewed some dash camera videos and photos alongside the jury by that time.
Hampton countered, saying if there were pedestrians on the left side of the road, it would have diminished or removed Saint Jean’s possible escape route to the left of the ambulance, the escape route Gibbs had taken a few steps prior in the chain reaction.
Erramouspe didn’t see it that way either, but he welcomed the challenge.
“If he wants to show that argument, I welcome it, because I’ll be more than happy to show contradictory evidence,” said the prosecutor.
Erramouspe in later redirect questioning of Perez emphasized a claim Perez had made in his interview with Craig: that Saint Jean drove “aggressively” into the scene.
The Marine Trucker
Next, the state called Gibbs to the witness stand. He wore a mauve collared shirt and blue jeans, and spoke with an assertive and confident air.
He also was shaken by the crash, he said, with the scene “imprinted” on his mind.
Gibbs testified that when he escaped to the left side of the road with the double trailer setup he was hauling, he got out of the cab to let Harris and Gruetzmacher know he was OK.
Harris had checked on him, Gibbs added.
After that, he tried without success to get his truck unstuck, as he’d lodged it into the earth.
The reason he went off-road instead of slamming on the brakes is because he didn’t want to roll the combination, he said.
Gibbs was standing near his trailer when he turned and caught a fleeting second of Saint Jean’s truck’s approach, he testified.
Gibbs dove farther into the median at the sight of the vehicle. He estimated Saint Jean’s truck at 55-65 mph, he said, citing about a decade of trucking experience up to that point.
After the loud impact, Gibbs went looking for the EMTs, whom he’d just seen walking back toward the ambulance, he testified.
He found Gruetzmacher under the engine of the truck Saint Jean had been driving.
“I thought she was a redhead,” said Gibbs, his voice breaking emotional for the first time in his testimony, “because there was so much blood and (red) coolant in her hair.”
He was able to pull her out from under the vehicle by her armpits after he verified that she was alive, he said.
Court documents say her neck was fractured, her back broken in multiple places, her hand and thumb broken, and her skull fractured.
Gibbs went looking for Harris, he said.
He found Harris under the landing gear of his own first trailer — that’s the equipment to prop the trailer up when it’s not linked to the tractor.
It was Harris’ reflective jacket that caught Gibbs’ eye, he said, adding that the jacket was bunched “all the way up, touching my landing gear.”
Gibbs watched for movement, but found none.
Harris had died on scene, court documents say.
Gibbs went back to check on Gruetzmacher at that time, he testified.
After the wreck, Gibbs asked his company if he could switch to day-only driving for a while to “get my head right.”
The company said he didn’t have enough seniority for that, so he quit — five days after the crash and one day after Christmas.
Under Hampton’s questioning, Gibbs’ recollections of the scene remained more consistent than Perez’s had.
Hampton asked Gibbs if he’d been talking to Perez on the left side of the road at the time of the crash, but Gibbs said he wasn’t sure whom he’d been talking to at that time.
“You still can draw the scene pretty well though,” said Hampton, referring to a sketch Gibbs had built for Alton earlier in his testimony.
“It’s imprinted in my mind,” said Gibbs. “Just got stuck in there.”
Subtly …
Prosecutors with their questions emphasized how other drivers handled the situation.
Somewhere between five and 15 vehicles rolled past the wreck before Saint Jean got there, on the right shoulder of the road, Gibbs testified.
Gibbs himself fled to the left. And the lights were bright, “blue and amber, and red,” Gibbs said.
Alton asked why he went off-road.
“Could you see the lights?” she asked.
“Yes,” came Gibbs’ answer.
Hampton countered, noting that neither Gibbs nor Herrera-Pupo had put out “triangles or flares” as required in a crash.
They had both switched on their hazard lights.
Gibbs said he’d been too rushed to add the triangle or flare.
Gibbs served prior as a U.S. Marine, he confirmed under Hampton’s questioning.
“You have training for stressful situations?” asked Hampton.
“Yes,” answered Gibbs.
“Do you think that helped you navigate this situation?” asked the defense attorney.
“Yes,” Gibbs answered.
The trial is ongoing Friday and into next week.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
