FRANKLIN — Ten witnesses testified Thursday during the third day of the fatal hit-and-run trial of Paul Morrisroe, and the jury started to see some of the 600 photos the prosecution is planning to use in the case.
Morrisroe, 40, of Sunny Lane in Marshburg, is on trial this week in Venango County Court in front of a jury selected from that county as well. He is accused of killing 20-year-old Dakota Heinaman by striking the young man’s motorcycle with his truck, then leaving the scene as Heinaman lay dying in the middle of Route 646, just feet away from his home in Cyclone.
Perhaps the most chilling part of the day’s presentation was a simple surveillance video from Vavalo’s in Cyclone, about a mile or two away from the scene of the crash. District Attorney Stephanie Vettenburg Shaffer had Cpl. Lance Schimp, crime unit supervisor with the Kane barracks of state police, on the stand. He explained, as the video played, what the jury was watching as two vehicles could be seen driving by.
“The first vehicle was a motorcycle,” Schimp said, referring to Heinaman’s 1979 Harley Davidson. “The second was a truck,” he said, referring to Morrisroe’s truck.
The grainy image didn’t show the operators of either vehicle, but showed the truck passed by within seconds of Heinaman’s motorcycle.
Heinaman’s parents, Harry Heinaman and Dawn James, both grew emotional watching the final video of their son still alive.
Schimp also pointed out the video showed the front and rear lights on the motorcycle were operational, and there was no damage visible on Morrisroe’s truck.
Schimp was on the stand for much of the day, explaining he was called in from home to investigate the crash. He went to the crash scene first, and then followed the grooves in the road from Cyclone to Marshburg. He said the grooves were “very easily visible.” In Marshburg, he met up with Trooper (now corporal) Mary Gausman, who had obtained a search warrant to enter Morrisroe’s garage.
“We knew it was going to be easier to get in the garage with the help of the homeowner,” Schimp said. He and a few other officers went to Morrisroe’s house to ask him to cooperate. He knocked on the door, and two “full-sized Saint Bernards” were barking loudly. Morrisroe was visible through the front window of the house, sleeping on the couch. The barking didn’t wake him, Schimp said.
When Morrisroe came to the door, Schimp said he was there to talk about the crash. Morrisroe “responded by saying ‘what crash? I was sleeping. You saw me sleeping,’” Schimp recounted.
Morrisroe accompanied the officers to the garage. He was eventually placed under arrest for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.
“Once he was presented with the search warrant, he said ‘my keys are in my truck in my garage,’” Schimp testified.
“Did you ever tell him you knew the truck was in the garage?” Shaffer asked. “Not that I recall,” Schimp replied.
“The first time it was stated the truck was in the garage was by the defendant?” she reiterated. Yes, the corporal replied. “Can you see the defendant’s house from the garage?” she asked. “I couldn’t see it. I was never there in the daytime though,” Schimp said.
Shaffer entered into evidence numerous photos taken by Schimp of the truck and the interior of the garage, along with the outer shell of a tire lying outside the garage door. He explained each photo, pointing out the damage to the front fender of the truck, the orange paint transfer from Heinaman’s motorcycle on the front bumper of the truck, the worn rim where the truck had been driven without the tire.
Shaffer then showed a video, recorded by Schimp from a helicopter. The video traced the progress of a state police cruiser from the Cyclone trailer park to Morrisroe’s garage — a trip that took about 20 minutes.
Much of the day was spent with state troopers on the stand, explaining their parts of the investigation into the fatal crash.
Trooper Alex Wissman had taken photos of the crash scene. Smethport Borough Police Officer Kyle Day followed gouge marks in the road from near the crash scene to Morrisroe’s garage on Sunny Lane in Marshburg, and contacted state police to report he had found a truck matching witness descriptions and having significant front end damage.
Troopers Ryan Marcinko and Danielle Marshall-Hoare were the first state police to respond to Sunny Lane, and secured the scene until Schimp and Gausman arrived. Marshall-Hoare eventually crawled through a window of the locked garage to let Schimp and Gausman in, as they had a search warrant for the garage.
Marcinko, at Schimp’s direction, placed Morrisroe under arrest for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol. He and Marshall-Hoare transported him to Bradford Regional Medical Center for blood alcohol testing, which he refused.
Marshall-Hoare testified about Morrisroe’s level of intoxication at the time. “He smelled very strongly of alcoholic beverages. I had my window down due to the smell.”
Trooper Robert Fay made a video of the gouges in the pavement from the crash scene to Morrisroe’s garage; it was played in court Thursday morning. He testified that he remained at the garage until Trooper Craig Erickson came, and turned custody of the scene over to him.
Donovan Sevrey from Tuna Valley Towing testified that he had towed Morrisroe’s truck from his garage to the Kane barracks of state police impound yard. Erickson testified that he was there when Sevrey loaded the truck on the flatbed, followed the tow truck to the barracks and entered the truck into the impound yard.
Danielle Little, a former tenant in an apartment building owned by Morrisroe and located next to his garage, testified as well. She said the night of the crash, she had heard “a vehicle coming really fast down the driveway. It was going so fast it sounded like it was ripping up the road, like gravel was flying.”
She got up and went outside, but didn’t see a vehicle. Instead, she saw the door to Morrisroe’s garage was closed. It was seldom closed, she said, as Morrisroe’s employees would come and go when they needed supplies for work.
“You saw no one exiting the garage in your direction?” asked Shaffer. No, Little replied.
The other witness testifying Tuesday was forensic pathologist Dr. Eric Vey, who said he had performed an autopsy on Charlie Bailey, the man who police allege was a passenger in Morrisroe’s truck the night of the crash. The defense has said that Bailey was the one driving, not Morrisroe.
Vey said the manner of death was ruled suicide by McKean County Coroner Mike Cahill, and the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the neck. He also confirmed that Bailey was 5’6” tall.
The trial will begin again at 8:15 a.m. today.
