Trial begins in fatal crash Organ recipient attends proceedings

SKOWHEGAN – In most criminal cases involving a death – murder or manslaughter – there are usually no winners. The victim is gone; a family is left in mourning. The defendant and his or her family struggle as well, holding on to a legal system that could take their loved one away for years, decades or forever.

But in Somerset County Superior Court on Monday, Julie Leason was the exception to the rule.

Before Justice Kirk Studstrup, Stephen McCarron, 21, is on trial for the manslaughter death of Jenni L. Bemis, 20, in a car accident in Palmyra on May 30, 2000.

Leason sat quietly Monday morning through the selection of the jurors – five women and nine men – and then spent the afternoon hearing opening arguments and listening to six witnesses describe the events leading up to the accident and their rescue attempts at the crash site.

She watched carefully as the prosecutor slowly showed the jurors a photograph of Bemis, wearing a blue sweater and smiling broadly.

And by 4 p.m., when court adjourned for the day, Leason was feeling the strain.

“No one here benefits from Jenni’s death but me,” she said quietly, tears finally flowing.

In her body, Leason carries one of Bemis’ kidneys, a gift that has allowed her to live a nearly normal life for the past 21/2 years and an organ that has proved to be a perfect match.

Leason, who lives in Yarmouth, is one of five people who received Bemis’ organs.

“But I would give it back in a minute, in a minute, if it would bring Jenni back,” she said.

Bemis died hours after being ejected from her 1995 Ford Escort shortly after midnight. The car is estimated to have been traveling 107 mph when it flew off a curve in Palmyra, struck an embankment, rolled onto its roof and crashed through several small trees.

The Newport woman had owned the car for seven days, said prosecutor Paul Rucha, a Somerset-Kennebec County assistant district attorney. The car still had temporary paper plates attached.

McCarron, who suffered a lacerated liver and a broken ankle, repeatedly told police at the scene that he was the driver of the vehicle, but began denying that he was the driver shortly after the accident. He has been free on $5,000 cash bail since his indictment in May 2001 after an intensive 12-month investigation.

A parade of witnesses Monday provided information to the jurors about Bemis’ activities the day before the accident and how the couple, who were friends, came to be riding in the car that night.

Rucha told the jury in his opening remarks that the entire case rests on the forensic evidence that he will use to determine who was driving the Bemis vehicle. “You are not going to hear from any witnesses as to where and when Jenni switched places with Mr. McCarron,” Rucha said, hinting at his theory of how McCarron allegedly came to be driving Bemis’ car.

Rucha also told the jurors that expert testimony will reveal that DNA evidence of blood found in the car, impressions on the car’s steering wheel that match McCarron’s belt, and an impression of the door lock on the passenger side that matches an injury to Bemis’ body all will prove that McCarron was the driver.

These witnesses, from both the Maine State Police crime laboratory and the private sector, are expected to testify over the next two days.

One of the witnesses expected to be most damaging to McCarron is Maine State Police Trooper James Medeiros. Medeiros, the first trooper to arrive at the accident, testified at a suppression hearing last April that McCarron twice admitted he was the driver of the car before he was taken to Sebasticook Valley Hospital in Pittsfield for treatment.

McCarron sat quietly throughout Monday’s testimony, dressed in a white shirt and gray dress pants. His hair was short and he sported a neatly trimmed goatee. His mother, Carol McCarron of Detroit, and his sister, Kristina McCarron of Bangor, sat close behind him, talking quietly to McCarron during court breaks.

On the opposite side of the courtroom gathered Bemis’ family: her mother, father, brother, grandmother, aunts and other family members. Some softly cried during testimony, and Eileen Bemis, the victim’s mother, left the courtroom during testimony by paramedic Vaughn Spencer, who attended to Jenni Bemis at the crash site.

In the midst of the family was Leason, who plans to attend each of the court sessions. “This is a lot harder than I thought it would be,” she said.