Bristol Township police Officer Paul Shallcross started describing what he saw after arriving at a fatal accident involving a Chevy Camaro and a motorcycle on New Falls Road on the last day of July 2011.
He told the court how he found the body of a woman in the road underneath the Camaro, when a gut-wrenching sob erupted in the front row. It was was the mother of Janel Cook, the 30-year-old Montgomery County woman who died in the crash.
“No, oh God, Janel, my baby,” she said while clutching two framed photos of her daughter pointed toward the judge.
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| Janel Cook |
Bristol Township District Judge Joanne Kline, who heard the case Friday, called for a 10-minute recess after the woman was unable to control her crying. Prosecutor Matt Hoover escorted the mother into the hallway. Her cries could be clearly heard inside the court gallery.
At the defense table, the Bensalem woman who police say was driving drunk when she crashed her speeding Camaro into the motorcycle, was in tears, too.
“This is a terrible situation for all involved,” Kline said before testimony resumed without Cook’s mother in the courtroom.
Bucks County Assistant District Attorney Hoover had seven witnesses testify at the preliminary hearing for Pauline Redonggo-Beffert, 46, of Iris Avenue.
A passenger in another car testified about witnessing Redonggo-Beffert driving erratically and speeding through red lights minutes before the crash.
Police allege that Redonggo-Beffert had a blood alcohol content of .086 — which is just above the .08 Pennsylvania limit for driving — when her 2010 Camaro slammed into the back of a 2009 Harley-Davison motorcycle.
Her attorney, Richard Klineburger III, argued that Kline should throw out the DUI charges against his client, saying police didn’t conduct a field sobriety test before obtaining her blood and urine samples, which were tested, and the prosecution failed to show his client was under the influence.
But Kline disagreed, holding Redonggo-Beffert on all charges including criminal homicide, homicide by vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, homicide by vehicle, and DUI. She remains free after posting 10 percent of her $100,000 bail.
On the stand, Shallcross testified that an event data recorder, a device that locks in data when an airbag is deployed, registered the speed of Redonggo-Beffert’s Camaro at 92 mph two seconds before the crash.
The posted speed limit on that portion of New Falls Road is 40 mph, he said.
The case against Redonggo-Beffert went before a Bucks County grand jury, which returned an indictment against her in August. The grand jury found that Redonggo-Beffert and her then-boyfriend had been drinking beer at a VFW post in the area of Frankford Avenue and Welsh Road in Northeast Philadelphia.
Redonggo-Beffert told police she drank four beers, according to the presentment. After leaving the VFW, the couple drove to their respective homes before together heading to Redonggo-Beffert’s father’s home in Levittown, according to the grand jury presentment.
A couple who witnessed the fatal crash told police that they encountered the speeding Camaro about 15 minutes before the accident.
On Friday, Judy Bowman testified that she and her boyfriend were stopped at a red light at New Falls Road and Newportville Road headed toward Levittown when she noticed headlights behind her coming up fast. Bowman was a passenger in a 2012 Camaro.
Bowman testified that at first she thought Redonggo-Beffert’s Camaro was a police car because of how closely the car was following.
How close? Hoover asked.
“If (her boyfriend) put the brakes on, it would have hit us,” she said.
But it wasn’t until the car reached New Falls and Durham Roads, where New Falls Road widens into two lanes, that Bowman said she saw Redonggo-Beffert’s Camaro drive around her car and take off on her right at a high rate of speed. She testified she noticed a woman was driving.
“The way (she) was driving I thought it was a man,” Bowman added.
She testified she saw the car blow through a red light at Bristol-Oxford Valley and New Falls roads. A short time later, Bowman said, she came across the aftermath of the accident, which is less than 1½ miles from the Bristol-Oxford Valley intersection.
Police say that the motorcycle driver, Michael Martell, of Philadelphia, had picked up Cook at the Bristol Township bar where she worked shortly before 2 a.m. They two went on a short ride before heading back to the bar. Martell told police he had a few drinks earlier in the evening but his blood-alcohol content after the accident was .03, according to police.
Martell was driving east on New Falls Road in the right-hand lane preparing to stop when he heard “tires on the road” behind him, police said. Before he could react, his motorcycle was struck from behind.
The force of the crash threw the couple off the bike. Martell sustained foot injuries, fractured ribs and severe shoulder injuries. The Camaro ran over Cook, who was wearing a helmet. Cook later died from her injuries, police said.
On the witness stand Friday, Martell testified that he felt something slam into him and time seemed to stop. Then it felt like he was hit by a freight train.
“All I remembered was protect my head because I didn’t have a helmet on,” he said, adding as his body bounced on the concrete he could hear bones breaking.
In a statement presented to the grand jury, Redonggo-Beffert said the motorcycle was in the left lane and switched to the right lane near the McDonald’s on New Falls Road, and she couldn’t stop in time to avoid contact, according to the indictment.
But forensic toxicologist Thomas Brettell, director of toxicology for the Bucks County Crime Lab, testified that at .086 percent blood alcohol level, a person would exhibit signs of alcohol impairment.
At that level, Brettell said, the central nervous system would be affected.
The person would have slower movements, difficulty seeing and be more likely to engage in risky behavior.
“You can’t operate a car safely,” he added.
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