Davis Calls Accident a 'Bad Dream' in Hospital Recording
Posted
Aaron Organ-aorgan@timesuniononline.com
ALBION – In an audio recording taken in a hospital room, Samuel Davis Jr. not only had no recollection of the violent March 2010 crash that killed his girlfriend as he spoke with an investigator, he also insisted he had been at home at the time and went on to suggest he had been placed in the vehicle.
With Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Rick Shepherd there to serve a search warrant to collect blood samples, Davis referred to the chain of events that found him in an emergency room bed and his girlfriend – 22-year-old Victoria Lynn Anderson - dead as a “bad (expletive) dream.”
“I was at my (expletive) cousin’s house, man,” a groggy Davis told Shepherd in the recording. “Me and her (Anderson), we made it back up to my house. I know exactly what I done. But I never left my (expletive) crib. It’s like this is a bad (expletive) dream to me right now.
“What I just don’t understand, man, is, I was at my crib. It’s like somebody like, took me outside of my crib or something, man. They’re saying I wrecked my vehicle? That I did?”
Davis, 36, of 3762 W. Old 30, Warsaw, is on trial for charges of causing a death by driving with a blood-alcohol content of more than 0.15 percent, causing a death by driving with cocaine in his system, causing a death by driving with marijuana in his system – all Class B felonies – and Class C felony driving while intoxicated causing death. He was charged following the March 2, 2010, crash that killed Anderson, in which he was found to reportedly have a blood-alcohol content of 0.25 percent and cocaine and marijuana in his system.
The case was moved from Kosciusko County to Noble County after Davis petitioned for and was granted a change of venue earlier this year.
But as the audio recording made by Shepherd inside an emergency room at Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne in the immediate hours after the crash tells it, Davis had no knowledge of any crash.
“Can you please tell me, because I know I was not driving, will you please tell me what’s going on?” said Davis before repeating it twice more.
“Who was driving?” Davis asked.
“You were. You were in a car accident, you hit a tree, you were the driver,” said an unidentified medic.
Davis was then asked what year it was and where he was at, which he correctly answered, before offering the date as “(expletive) February 2nd. March 2nd.”
Davis then said, “I ain’t going to take the fall for nobody.”
The audio recording, in which Davis also asked where Anderson was, served more as a sideshow for the larger legal argument made by Davis’ defense attorney Scott Lennox that the blood draw procedure was done out of procedure, among other discrepancies in the testings.
Lennox, during a cross examination of the Parkview Hospital lab assistant who drew Davis’ blood, attacked what he presented as a series of procedural gaffs in the sample collections process.
Lennox called into question the request for blood sample form that requires the official requesting the same to fill out a section of the form, which in this case was not completed by Shepherd. The form was also not signed by a witness after the lab tech signed it following the draw.
The lab assistant told Lennox her responsibilities lie in the collection of blood samples, and that other hospital personnel will combine to complete the procedure check-list as well.
“Do you have the discretion to decide which part of the protocol you’re going to follow or not follow?” asked Lennox.
Lennox then went on the offensive against Shepherd’s testimony, calling into question why several officers noted he was at the crash scene when he never was, and entering new information about Davis’ urine sample that Shepherd delivered to the Indiana Department of Toxicology leaking.
Lennox also raised questions about why, if he had stated he smelled alcohol on Davis, Shepherd listed in his crash report that the paramount contributing factor to the crash was “ran off roadway” and not “alcoholic beverages,” which he ranked as the second cause. Shepherd said that’s because, “The primary cause was because they ran off the road.”
The jury also heard testimony from the toxicologist who tested Davis’ blood, who discovered a blood-alcohol content of 0.25 – more than three times the legal limit.
Davis remained collected and concerned during the day’s proceedings. A visibly tired collection of Anderson’s family sat in the gallery’s front row, where they have settled in throughout the trial.
The prosecution is expected to rest their case sometime this morning.
