Last Updated on January 13, 2017 by CCAR Staff
LOS ANGELES >> A California Highway Patrol officer who accompanied the woman accused of killing six people in a deadly wrong-way crash in 2014 at the hospital explained in court Friday why he didn’t order a test to measure blood alcohol levels in her first hours at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
Defense attorneys for Fontana resident and suspect Olivia Carolee Culbreath are attempting to make a case before Judge Lisa B. Lench that the blood evidence taken from their client should not be part of the state’s case because it was obtained without a search warrant.
Their client is facing six counts of murder in the deaths of six people in the Feb. 9, 2014, wrong-way, DUI crash.
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Padilla asked Marsden Friday, “Besides staying with Olivia Culbreath at the hospital, did you have any other responsibility?”
Marsden said he did not.
Defense attorney Daniel Perlman asked Marsden why he took a DUI kit — a package that contains test tubes for blood evidence collection, forms and other necessary supplies — with him to the hospital.
Marsden said he took the kit in case the investigating officer needed it, because different CHP offices use different kits based on the requirements of the laboratories they work with.
Perlman asked if he was in a position to request medical personnel to collect a blood sample.
Marsden said he was not because he didn’t know the facts of the crash.
“Were you in a position to get a warrant?” Perlman asked.
“No, I was not the investigating officer,” Marsden said.
To request a warrant, he needed to know who the investigating officer was, he said. He didn’t.
Prosecutors accuse Culbreath of driving a Chevrolet Camaro east on the westbound 60 Freeway at about 4:45 a.m. Feb. 9, 2014 at speeds approaching 100 mph, the CHP said at the time. The car crashed head-on into a sport utility vehicle. Another vehicle then crashed into the SUV.
Six people died in the crash. Two of the victims were Culbreath’s passengers: Culbreath’s sister, Maya, 24, of Rialto and Chino resident Kristin Melissa Young, 21.
Four residents of Huntington Park — Gregorio Mejia-Martinez, 47; Leticia Ibarra, 42; Jessica Jasmine Mejia, 20; and Ester Delgado, 80 — were traveling in the SUV. They were all thrown from the vehicle and died.
After Friday’s hearing, Perlman said he was trying to establish that Marsden and the investigating officer, CHP Officer David Crislip, knew they were dealing with a possible DUI case which required collecting blood samples quickly, yet they didn’t do so.
And when they finally did, they had no warrant.
“The (U.S.) Supreme Court doesn’t look kindly” on that, Perlman said after the hearing.
Defense attorneys argue that because Culbreath was unconscious when CHP officers asked medical personnel to draw the blood samples, she was not able to consent. To take the sample under such circumstances required a warrant.
The hearing will resume Feb. 8. Medical personnel who drew the blood samples are expected to testify that date.
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