Steven Bourgoin bends his head during a break in his murder trial in Vermont Superior Court in Burlington on Tuesday. Bourgoin is facing five counts of second-degree murder for a crash that killed five teenagers on I-89 in Williston in 2016. Pool photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
BURLINGTON – Steven Bourgoin sat only feet away as he watched video from the dash cam of a Williston cruiser he is accused of stealing after crashing his pickup into an oncoming car, killing five Mad River Valley teens on Interstate 89.
After initially fleeing the crash scene in the cruiser, traveling south on the interstate, police say Bourgoin did a U-turn, heading back north, driving again the wrong way on the highway.
Then, according to police, Bourgoin slammed the speeding cruiser into vehicles pulled over at the earlier crash site, as well as his own heavily damaged Toyota Tacoma.
“It was like a bomb went off,” said Williston Police Sgt. Brian Claffy, who had been following Bourgoin and arrived at the scene shortly after the cruiser crash.
Claffy testified Tuesday on the second day of trial for Bourgoin, who is facing five counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of the teens as well as separate charges for stealing a responding Williston police officer’s cruiser and crashing it.
“I had never seen anything like that before, nothing even close, so that was pretty jarring,” Vermont State Police Trooper Matthew Nadeau said of the crash scene.
At the time of the late-night crash more than two years ago, Nadeau was a Richmond police officer. That night, he received word on his radio that Bourgoin has stolen a cruiser from an earlier crash scene.
Nadeau said he spotted the stolen cruiser on the interstate, saw it do a U-turn, and tried to catch up to it.
“Could you tell how fast the stolen vehicle as going?” Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, the prosecutor, asked him.
“Well in excess of the posted speed limit,” Nadeau replied.
“Were you able to keep up with it?” George asked.
“No,” Nadeau responded.
Prosecutors on Tuesday played several videos taken from dash cam of the cruisers of officers arriving at the crash scene on Oct. 8, 2016, as well as those who tried to track Bourgoin after the theft of the cruiser.
“Who has my car?” Williston Police Officer Eric Shepard could be heard in one of the videos played in court. He then reported that his “EQ,” or police cruiser, was heading south on the interstate, away from the crash scene.
Moments later, Claffy testified Tuesday, he heard Shepard, yelling over the radio, “10-50, 10-50.”
“What does that mean?” George, the prosecutor, asked Claffy.
“That’s a traffic accident,” Claffy said of the police code.
George said at the start of proceedings on the second day of the trial that Shepard was expected to testify Tuesday, but had recently gone to the hospital due to a medical emergency.
Before Shepard’s cruiser was taken, prosecutors say Bourgoin had been driving the wrong way on the interstate in Williston, crashing into a vehicle, which had been heading south in the southbound lane, killing all five teens who were inside.
Steven Bourgoin arrives in court for his murder trial in Vermont Superior Court in Burlington on Tuesday. Bourgoin is facing five counts of second-degree murder for a crash that killed five teenagers on I-89 in Williston in 2016. Pool photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Jurors on Tuesday heard the roar of engines and excited voices of officers over cracked radio calls as they watched videos captured by dash cams.
The videos showed the flashing blue lights of cruisers and the fiery scene of vehicles ablaze with car wreckage strewn about the interstate.
Thick gray smoke could be seen billowing high into the air above the chaotic highway, and in one of the videos a screaming Bourgoin could be heard after the second crash.
At times during portions of the videos shown Tuesday when no radio calls were blaring and the sirens couldn’t be heard, the dash cam videos caught eerily silent scenes, such as Bourgoin driving away in the cruiser down the dark interstate away from the initial crash site.
Moments later, he makes the U-turn on the interstate after stopping briefly on the side of the highway. Then, the cruiser’s engine thunders as he races back to the crash scene.
Seconds before the crash, the cruiser onboard system reveals Bourgoin has reached 103 mph, but the moment of impact his vehicle had with another car on the interstate is not shown.
George, the prosecutor, asked Claffy, the Williston sergeant, why that footage is not captured by the dash cam.
“The cruiser was damaged heavily and on fire,” he replied.
Michael Plunkett, another motorist who came upon the crash scene, also testified Tuesday. He was a driver of one of the vehicle’s hit by Bourgoin in the cruiser when he returned to the site.
A passenger who had been in the Plunkett’s vehicle had recorded on his cell phone a video of the crash from inside their car.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Plunkett repeatedly said on the video as his vehicle was struck.
The passenger walked away uninjured, but Plunkett testified he suffered multiple injuries, including a broken left clavicle and left shoulder blade, two cracked ribs, and a collapsed lung.
All the videos Tuesday were shown on a white wall inside a Burlington courtroom, about 40 away and directly across from the jurors who will decide whether Bourgoin is guilty of the charges against him, or was, as his attorney contends, insane at the time of the crash.
Bourgoin, seated at the defense table, showed little emotion to the images displayed on the wall. At times, he appeared to closely watch the dash cam videos while at other points he looked downward at the table in front of him.
The five teenagers killed in the initial crash were in a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta, traveling south on Interstate 89 around 11:50 p.m. that night, heading home from a concert in South Burlington.
They were Eli Brookens, 16, of Waterbury; Janie Chase Cozzi, 15, of Fayston; Liam Hale, 16, of Fayston; and Mary Harris and Cyrus Zschau, both 16, and both from Moretown.
Cozzi had transferred to Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire after attending Harwood Union High School in Duxbury with the four other teens.
Trooper Bradley Miller, who also responded to the crash scene on the interstate, testified Tuesday that he came upon Shepard, who had Bourgoin down on the ground at gunpoint after the second crash, and he helped put the suspect in handcuffs.
Miller said a doctor who arrived the scene asked him if he could remove the handcuffs from Bourgoin so he could render him aid, and Miller said he agreed.
That’s when, the trooper testified, Bourgoin rolled, appearing to try to stand, but only getting to one knee. That’s when Miller said he took Bourgoin down again and put the cuffs back on.
Bourgoin’s attorney, Robert Katims, in cross-examining Miller, pointed out that the spot where Bourgoin was located at the time was “sloped,” and asked if his client’s action may have been a result of the terrain, not a decision to flee.
“From my opinion,” the trooper replied, ”it was a conscious decision to move and roll.”
Laura Howland, a cardiac care nurse, describes how she gave aid to Steven Bourgoin at the crash scene during Bourgoin’s murder trial in Vermont Superior Court in Burlington on Tuesday. Bourgoin is facing five counts of second-degree murder for a crash that killed five teenagers on I-89 in Williston in 2016. Pool photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Laura Howland, a cardiac nurse at University of Vermont Medical Center, was in a vehicle that also came upon the crash scene.
She said at one point she joined the doctor who tried to provide care to Bourgoin after the cruiser crash.
Howland testified about when the handcuffs were momentarily removed from Bourgoin from the scene.
“He tried to get away,” Howland said of Bourgoin.
She added that she told the doctor that if he asked to have Bourgoin’s handcuffs removed again she would no longer be assisting.
“I didn’t know what he was capable of doing,’” Howland said of Bourgoin. “I told the police officer the same thing.”
“Did he remain handcuffed?” Chittenden County Deputy State’s Attorney Susan Hardin, a prosecutor, asked.
“Yes he did,” Howland replied.
Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘It was like a bomb went off,’ officer testifies of fatal crash scene in Bourgoin murder trial.