HAVERHILL — Marie Pigaga's second motor vehicle homicide trial began yesterday, more than two and a half years after the car she was driving struck Robin Young, killing the 43-year-old Danville mother.
The state's first attempt at convicting Pigaga, 48, of 8 Middle Road, Plaistow, N.H., ended in a mistrial April 3, 2009, when a jury failed to reach a verdict after more than eight hours of deliberation.
Yesterday afternoon, eight jurors, along with Judge Stephen Abany, Assistant District Attorney Lisa Core and defense lawyer Carl Donaldson, visited the scene of the accident — Haffner's gas station and car wash on Route 125 at the Plaistow line.
They looked at the low retaining wall over which Pigaga's Mercedes-Benz traveled when it went off the road.
They also viewed the area outside the car wash where Young was wiping off her sport utility vehicle when she was struck by Pigaga's car.
Pigaga did not go to the scene.
The jury then returned to Haverhill District Court and heard the first witness testify. Roberta DelRosso, a registered nurse at Lahey Clinic with 25 years of experience in her profession, told the jury she went to Haffner's to wash her car and buy gas the afternoon of June 18, 2007.
Her attention was drawn to a woman who was drying off a black SUV shortly after having taken it through the carwash, she said.
"She was tall and pretty," DelRosso said of Young.
Young, a wife, mother and school secretary, had just taken her GMC Denali through the car wash and was wiping off the vehicle when the crash happened around 1 p.m. that day. Young's daughter Taylor, who was 12 at the time, was sitting in the Denali when Young was hit.
Pigaga, charged with motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and negligent operation of a motor vehicle, has said the brakes and steering of her 2000 Mercedes-Benz failed on that tragic day, even though two mechanics testified those systems were working after the accident.
Her lawyer asserted at the first trial that the state failed to check all possible defects in Pigaga's car.
During yesterday's testimony, DelRosso said that at the gas station she noticed a "small black car" going across the parking lot at Haffner's, toward the car wash.
"It was going fast. ... It didn't make any sense," she said under questioning by Core.
When the prosecutor asked her how fast the car was going, Donaldson objected. The judge allowed the question.
"Possibly 40 miles per hour. ... It all happened very quickly," DelRosso said.
She said that next she heard a "male voice" yell, "That car hit that lady!"
DelRosso said she had heard "some kind of hitting sound" and ran over to where Young was.
"What did you see?" Core asked.
"The woman was lying on the ground. Her leg was amputated, several feet from her body," DelRosso said.
"I didn't have much hope for her," she said, noting that Young was bleeding from her abdomen.
She testified that "there really wasn't much" she could do for Young, except put a blanket over her in the hope of protecting her against infection.
DelRosso told jurors she also saw the driver of the black Mercedes-Benz, Pigaga, and that she was crying.
"Oh my God! That poor lady!" Pigaga said, according to DelRosso.
Yesterday's proceedings were supposed to start at 9 a.m. Judge, prosecutor, defendant, witnesses and prospective jurors were there, but Donaldson was delayed and did not show up until 11:50 a.m. Shortly before his arrival, Abany stepped out of the chambers of the second session courtroom and observed, "It doesn't seem like 9 o'clock to me."
Donaldson declined to tell The Eagle-Tribune why he was late.
Abany told everyone involved in the case to be at the courthouse by 9 a.m. today when the trial continues.
If convicted, Pigaga would be sentenced to as many as two and a half years in jail, according to Stephen O'Connell, spokesman for the Essex district attorney's office.
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