Driver ignored screams to stop, court hears

Closing arguments were made last week in the case against a 25-year-old Canwood-area man charged in connection with a car crash that killed his girlfriend and injured two others.

Robert Nordby is charged with dangerous driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm as a result of an Oct. 2, 2007, car crash near Shellbrook, about 45 kilometres west of Prince Albert.

Nordby’s girlfriend, Geanine Denton, died in the crash while two passengers were injured.

Nordby pleaded not guilty to all charges against him when his trial began last week at Prince Albert Court of Queen’s Bench. He is also charged with arson in a separate incident earlier the same evening in which a small car was set on fire in an apparent attempt at insurance fraud.

The crash happened around 11 p.m. just south of Shellbrook. The court heard Nordby was driving a Dodge Neon along a grid road when he failed to stop at an intersection and collided head-on with a Ford F-250 truck sitting on the other side.

Several witnesses testified for the Crown during the week-long trial, including the two men who were in the back seat of Nordby’s vehicle at the time of the crash. Cousins Casey Reimer and Roger Reimer said they saw the stop sign and told Nordby to stop before the crash.

Nordby did not respond to their screams, the men said.

Nordby had been driving at a speed somewhere between 120 and 130 km/h at the time, they said. The speed limit on secondary gravel roads is 80 km/h.

"I yelled at Robert to stop because I was scared," Casey Reimer said.

"We were going really fast . . . the (other) vehicle wasn’t moving, it didn’t look like it was moving . . . then all I remember was a bang."

Murray Hannigan, a Shellbrook-area beekeeper, and his son-in-law, Matthew Graham, the occupants of the truck, also testified at the trial. They said they were waiting to turn at the intersection when they noticed the lights of the Dodge Neon coming toward them.

Hannigan said he decided to wait before turning into the intersection because it looked like the oncoming car was going too fast.

David Halvorsen, Nordby’s defence lawyer, argued in his closing statement that the crash never would have happened if Hannigan’s truck had not been positioned over the centre of the gravel road. Hannigan testified the wheels of his truck were turned toward the opposite side of the road, although he thought there still would have been enough room for a vehicle to pass.

Skid marks on the road show Nordby tried to stop before the crash, Halvorsen said, adding there was no sign warning of the upcoming intersection and the stop sign itself was faded. It is difficult to determine the exact speed Nordby was driving at the time, Halvorsen argued.

"What was the speed of Robert Nordby beyond a reasonable doubt?" he asked Queen’s Bench Justice Peter Foley. "That’s something you’ve got to find and I don’t think you can."

Crown prosecutor Maureen Longworth acknowledged Hannigan’s truck was over the centre of the road, but she said Nordby’s speed and the force of impact when the vehicles collided cannot be ignored.

"Common sense tells us from the damage to the bodies and the damage to the vehicles that this wasn’t a fender bender," Longworth said.

"There’s just no reason for this accused to have ignored that stop sign."

The judge is expected to give his decision in the case later this month.