Taking the stand in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John's Monday, RCMP Const. David Bourden described what he had seen when he arrived at the site of the crash that killed Hannah Thorne.
Responding to a call from dispatch shortly after 5:30 p.m. on July 7, 2016, Bourden was first to arrive at the scene on Route 73 along the New Harbour Barrens. There was a badly damaged red Ford F-150 truck in the ditch, and a young man, Brian King, acknowledged he had been driving it. King was distraught, Bourden told the court, and asked Bourden to check on the passengers in a red Hyundai Accent in the westbound lane, near the centre line.
The front of that vehicle was extensively damaged, Bourden said, so he opened the rear passenger door. From the back of the car, he saw 18-year-old Hannah in the front passenger seat. Checking for vitals signs, he determined she had already died.
Hannah's grandmother, then-81-year-old Gertie Thorne, was in the driver's seat. She was seriously injured, but alive, and went on to require surgery, spending two months in hospital recovering from the crash.
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Witnesses told police they had seen the Ford F-150 speeding shortly before the crash, racing a blue Chevy Cobalt. One witness had a possible plate number for the Cobalt, which led police to Steven Ryan Mercer.
King eventually pleaded guilty to charges of street racing causing death, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily harm and negligent driving, and received a four-year jail sentence, minus credit for the time he had spent in jail since his arrest. In an agreed statement of facts entered during his case, King acknowledged he and Mercer had been drag racing.
Mercer, however, has pleaded not guilty to charges of criminal negligence causing death, criminal negligence causing bodily harm, street racing causing death, street racing causing bodily harm and breaching court orders.
His lawyer, Randy Piercey, told the court as Mercer's trial began Monday morning that the issue at hand is one of identity.
The court saw taped interviews with Mercer, in which he admitted driving the Cobalt, but denied having anything to do with the crash. He and King had not been racing, he said.
"I'm telling you the truth," Mercer told Bourden in another recorded conversation.
"Why would you tell me the truth about some things and not others?" Bourden asked him, noting Mercer had appeared to distance himself from King since the crash.
"I didn't know he was behind me. It didn't even look like an accident to me," Mercer said.
"I don't understand why I'm being charged, to be quite honest. I had nothing to do with what happened."
Mercer told the investigator he had "only been driving like everyone else" on the road that day.
Bourden told him that witnesses had reported seeing him drag racing the truck, going bumper-to-bumper and travelling side-by-side at high speeds.
Police say Mercer and King were speeding up to 130 km/h before the crash.
A number of Hannah's loved ones were in the courtroom Monday, at least one of them holding a photo of Hannah and her grandmother. The trial continues Tuesday.
Tara_bradbury@thetelegram.com
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
