Wife of accused testifies in Brady Francis hit-and-run trial

The final witness to take the stand in the hit-and-run trial of Maurice Johnson was his spouse and the passenger in the GMC allegedly involved in the crime.

Jacinthe Johnson testified Monday afternoon that she was with Johnson the night of Feb. 24, 2018 when they hit something they thought was a deer.

She said they stopped briefly and looked behind them, but stayed in the truck and drove off quickly. Testifying in French Jacinthe Johnson said she didn't leave the truck because she didn't want to see a dead or hurt deer.

Maurice Johnson is accused of failing to stop at the scene of the accident that killed 22-year-old Brady Francis.

Francis was found dead in Saint-Charles, north of his community of Elsipogtog, on Feb. 24, 2018.

On Monday afternoon, following testimony by acollision reconstructionist called by the defence, Jacinthe Johnson walked the court through what she believes happened that night.

At around 3 p.m. the twowent to the store to pick up alcohol. She said her spouse had a headache so he wasn't drinking, and offered to drive.

The couple drove to the Co-op in Saint-Louis de Kent. Maurice Johnson went to get vodka and she bought the beer. They went back to their house at around 3:30 p.m. before they set off for an afternoon drive.

She grabbed their dog and some beer, she said, and for the next sixhours, they drove to their camp, friends'camps and toured around some of her husband's favourite hunting spots.

On their way home, Jacinthe Johnson said Maurice "reacted quickly." She said the dog was on her lap and she saw nothing.

She said Maurice Johnson told her he hit a deer. They both looked back but saw nothing, she said.

She asked her husband to drive her back home and comeback to see the deer if he wants. She said she wouldn't let him stop any longer.

When they got home, Johnson said she went to her room and went to sleep at around 9:30 p.m.and didn't hear or see any police cars.

The next morning she saw on social media that the police were looking for a GMC involved in a hit-and-run. At around 10 a.m they took the car and drove to the police station, she said. The door was locked, and they tried to buzz in but there was no answer.

The two decided to drive back to the spot where they thought they hit a deer, but saw no police there. They decided to call 911, and went back to the house, where the police met them shortly after.

She saidthe RCMPtook their statements, then told her Brady Francis was dead.

At that time, there was also a crowd of people outside their house, who were escorted off the property by police.

After a short cross examination, court was adjourned. Both sides will be making final arguments on Feb. 7.

Collision reconstruction

Earlier Monday, a collision reconstruction experttold the court the damage to the accused's truck and the location of the body do not match up.

Michael Wayne Reade of Moncton-based Forensic Reconstruction Specialists Inc. testified as a defence witness.

In questioning by defence lawyer Gilles Lemieux, Reade was shown pictures of a light-colored GMC truck belonging to Johnson. Reade identified damage to the headlights, front licence plate where the top part was bent and on the grille on the passenger side.

There is a crack in the grille and part of it is missing, he said.

Reade said if a pedestrian was struck on the passenger side, as the damage shows, the body would either go straight forward or to the right - towards the ditch in this case. He said Francis' body was found on the west-bound lane, on the opposite side of where the damage suggests it should be.

"[The] evidence just does not match that scenario," he told the court.

He said he assumes the Johnson vehicle was travelling eastbound prior to the collision. If that were the case, then he's puzzled why debris and the body were found on the driver's side in the west-bound lane.

"It makes no sense," he told the court.

On cross examination, Crown attorney Pierre Gionet challenged Reade's assumptions about which lane the truck was travelling in, and where Francis was when he was struck.

Johnson could have been driving anywhere on the road, in the middle of it or in the wrong lane, Gionet said, but Reade is assuming he was in the eastbound lane. Reade agreed.

In an objection, Lemieux said there is no evidence to show Johnson was travelling in the wrong lane.

Reade also said there are no signs of the truck braking quickly or heavily. Because of this, if the truck did strike Francis, then it would have run him over and caused damage to the underside. Reade testified there was no debris found on the underside of the truck to indicate this.

Nor was there any evidence that Francis's body had been run over by a vehicle. Reade testified that in his pedestrian injury analysis, he found no injuries that would be consistent with a body being run over by a vehicle.

The court previously heard Johnson and his wife thought they hit a deer, but called the police the day after because they saw news reports of Francis' death.

In a video statement to police Johnson said when he turned his head to look at his wife for a split second he hit what he believed to be a deer. He described it as being a blur, but about four feet high.

On Monday, Gionet said it doesn't take an expert to know that if you aren't looking at the road, you don't know where you are on the road. Reade agreed with that statement.

Glass evidence

Kimberly Kenny, a civilian member of the RCMP, previously testified via video conference she found fragments of glass on Francis's hoodie and jeans but she couldn't link these to the pickup truck belonging to the accused.

Reade said he can't say where the glass fragments came from, but he can say there is no broken glass on the truck in question.

Kenny said she wasn't able to determine the source of the glass because the RCMP forensics lab no longer conducts glass analysis.

Also on Francis's hoodie, Kenny said, were five metal fragments, dried blood, thin flakes of skin, dirt, debris and plant material, which could be grass.

Kenny testified she was unable to find any polymer from the hoodie on the grille of Johnson's truck.

She did say there were two black plastic fragments in the pair of jeans Francis was wearing that were similar to the black polycarbonate grille on the vehicle or other similar material.