Kroese trial sees slew of testimonies and video evidence in second day

Day two of Ashley Kroese’s trial in the 2020 death of Brentwood Police Officer Destin Legieza took place in a Williamson County courtroom on Tuesday. which included newly released footage of the crash scene.

26-year-old Kroese is charged with two counts of vehicular homicide by intoxication, vehicular homicide and aggravated assault that resulted in death.

As previously reported, jury selection took up nearly all of the first trial day on Monday, with Tuesday beginning with opening statements from the prosecution and defense.

"What happened there was a tragedy," Assistant District Attorney Carlin Hess told the jury during the prosecution's opening statement. "After you hear the proof in this case, the state of Tennessee will ask you to hold Ms. Kroese accountable for the death of 30-year-old police officer Destin Legieza by convicting her of vehicular homicide."

Attorney Joshua Brand issued the defense’s opening statement outright admitting that he and his fellow attorney Lee Ofman’s client had in fact been at bars in the hours before the crash and instead questioning the accuracy and legitimacy of the blood that was tested for alcohol by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

“Ultimately the question is going to be whether alcohol caused the accident," Brand said. "Whether the videos you see of Ms. Kroese driving, of her walking to her car, the testimony that you hear of her interacting with people, and their impressions of her that night suggest that the cause of the accident. We know that she was in the wrong lane, she had her headlights off, but [whether] the cause of the accident was intoxication."

Tuesday was also packed full of testimony from a variety of witnesses including from the first responding Brentwood Police officer to arrive at the scene of the fatal crash, three medical professionals who rendered aid to both Legieza and Kroese, a Tennessee Highway Patrol state trooper and the medical examiner who performed Legieza’s autopsy.

Nashville-Davidson County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Feng Lei performed the autopsy and testified that the totality of Legeiza’s injuries led to his death, with the cause of death officially listed as “multiple blunt force injuries.”

Fellow BPD Officer Brien Fletcher, who also has previous experience as both a firefighter and an EMT, was the first officer to reach the crash site, arriving within a minute of the collison. 

Fletcher told the court that he found his co-worker and friend unconscious and unresponsive, trapped in between the crushed dashboard and the dividing cage that separates an officer from the back seat compartment.

Fletcher said that Legieza was pale, with eyes fixed looking out of the passenger’s side of the suv. He had no pulse, and Fletcher said that Legieza was experiencing agonal breathing, a natural reflex of gasping when the body can’t get oxygen, something that due to Fletcher’s medical training and experience tells him that a person is nearing death.

That agonal breathing and lack of a pulse was also witnessed by a paramedic who treated Legieza at the scene as he was extricated from the suv by Brentwood Fire and Rescue members. He was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where he was officially pronounced dead at 5:45 a.m., just about one hour after the crash occurred.

Both Fletcher and the paramedic testified that they couldn't recall if Legieza was wearing a seatbelt.

Fletcher, who was audibly and visibly emotional during his testimony, was just one of dozens of family, friends and co-workers of Legieza who were present in the courtroom, equally upset by the tragic details described and shown on Tuesday.

Fletcher also talked about the "state of shock" that he and his fellow Williamson County first responders were at the crash site as the seriousness of the situation set in.

Fletcher testified that Kroese was moaning and screaming in pain when he checked on her, but her injuries were not as severe as Legieza's. 

A paramedic testified that Kroese was also trapped in her vehicle, pinned at the ankle, with injuries to her left leg and right wrist.

That paramedic described Kroese as “disoriented and confused,” but no law enforcement official or other first responders reported any evidence at the scene to initially indicate intoxication, including no reported smells of alcohol.

Videos of the crash scene from two BPD vehicle dash cameras were shown to the jury, both showing two destroyed SUVs with steam billowing from their mangled front ends, a blanket of dark debris stretched across the roadway.

In addition to the dash camera footage, several other videos were submitted as evidence, including a recording of the crash from a security camera at the Brentwood Market, in front of which the crash occurred. 

That private camera footage came from an exterior camera on the business, taken feet from where the collision occurred, with the rear end of the BPD patrol SUV coming to rest next to the market’s curbside mailbox.

The recorded crash is partially obscured by the camera’s timestamp, but several versions of the footage were shown to the jury, including zoomed-in and slowed-down versions which had been digitally enhanced by a THP Digital Forensics Technician.

That video, along with clips from two Brentwood traffic cameras which were shown on Tuesday, were the subject of a pre-trial hearing, and show what the district attorney's office argued was proof that Kroese had been driving around three miles through the city with no headlights activated, and in the minute leading up to the crash was driving in the opposite lane of travel.

The state also submitted video footage from the City of Franklin, where prosecutors said that Kroese began her “long night of drinking” at three different restaurants and bars, showing a black Jeep, later identified by law enforcement as Kroese’s crashed Jeep, pull into a streetside parking space just off the square at 7:33 p.m. on June 17, 2020.

A video recording from the same Franklin camera shows hours later, at 4:32 a.m., the Jeep parked in the same spot, and a third city camera shows a dark Jeep driving on Main Street toward Brentwood, which becomes Franklin Road, at 4:38 a.m. 

A THP state trooper and Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse also testified about the blood sample that was seized and tested by law enforcement which showed Kroese’s blood-alcohol level at twice over the legal limit.

That sample, both its legitimacy and legality, was disputed by the defense during pre-trial hearings, which saw them attempt to have the sample ruled inadmissible. The defense argued in December 2021 that the warrant that seized the blood sample that had previously been drawn by nurses was illegal, something that Judge James G. Martin III disagreed with, allowing it to be presented to the jury this week.

As it was ruled admissible, the defense questioned the chain of custody of the blood sample, which was hand-delivered by a trooper to the TBI’s Nashville headquarters, an admitted unique occurrence for the trooper. The defense also questioned if the blood could even be confirmed to be Kroese’s since the sample was already drawn before law enforcement arrived with a warrant.

Judge Martin announced that the state had presented about half of their proof at the end of the day on Tuesday, with at least one more witness for the prosecution expected to testify on Wednesday.

The Williamson Home Page will have continued coverage of the weeklong trial.