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it was supposed to be a routine motorcade for the queen of england but along this two-lane highway leading to
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yosemite national park a car carrying secret service agents collided with another killing three people
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what went wrong who was responsible hidden in this photograph was the clue to the mystery
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[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] in 1983 yosemite national park in california was selected to be the site
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of a royal visit by the heads of the british monarchy queen elizabeth ii and prince philip
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were scheduled to tour the park following a visit with president reagan at his california home
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don schneider a photographer and a reporter for a local radio station monitored the preparations for her
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arrival on his shortwave radio in advance of that there were three carloads of secret service agents that
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were going to yosemite to provide security at that location for her they were not directly involved in her
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transport but were supposed to be preceding her and have things ready up there in the in the park
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four cars carrying secret service agents traveled along highway 132 a two-lane road that snaked its way
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through the foothills of the sierra nevada there were three agents in the second
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car the driver was george labarge 41 years old he was married with a young son george labarge was a 14-year veteran of
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the secret service from dayton ohio he had been for many years assigned to the protection detail
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of the vice presidents as the three agents made their way eastward toward yosemite
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deputy sheriff rod sinclair of the mariposa county sheriff's office was preparing to check the road closings for
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the queen's visit rod was a a big man heavy and was quite macho and authoritative we had
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heard but we never induced any uh hard evidence of this fact that sinclair was something of a loose cannon
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sinclair and another deputy climbed into a chevy impala patrol car similar to this one and sped west on highway 132 to
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check on the road closings at the same moment the secret service agents continued eastward in a small
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rental car none of the agents was wearing a seat belt the road was wet from a light rain
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both sinclair and the convoy of secret service agents believed the road had been cleared of traffic
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the sheriff's car was coming from our right around this curve the secret service cars were coming from
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our left the road curved around a small hill that blocked the driver's view of approaching
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cars that location had been the scene of seven accidents in the previous three years
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at 10 31 a.m on march 5th it happened again the two cars entered the curve at the
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exact same moment the three agents were killed instantly protected by seat belts the two deputies
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suffered only minor injuries it appeared to be a terrible but unavoidable tragedy
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but was it the answer lay in the scarred surface of the roadway and the twisted metal of the
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wrecked cars [Music] a car with three secret service agents and a sheriff's patrol car with two
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deputies collided along a back road near yosemite national park the collision demolished both cars and
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claimed the lives of three secret service agents the question facing investigators was
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why within two hours a special unit of the fresno california highway patrol called
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the multi-disciplinary accident investigation team or mate arrived at the scene their job is to take a look at
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everything that's there document it classify it photograph it and then use it later in the reconstruction
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process to develop a model as to how the vehicles were moving you want to know what the
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damage patterns are where's the contact damage where is the induced damage what
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is the nature of the damage how does that relate to objects or other vehicles or
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other people or anything else the vehicle may have come in contact with the investigators found the point of
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impact marked by scattered debris a pool of brake fluid and more than a dozen gouge and scrape marks
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they also found a set of skid marks 64 feet long they began in sergeant sinclair's lane
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crossed the yellow center line and ended in the oncoming lane traveled by the secret service
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it was clear the skid marks would be a critical clue they photographed the roadway in detail that was their
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first job and they needed to do that before it was lost before the roadway could be
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open the mate investigators then interviewed eyewitnesses one of whom was driving
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behind the secret service cars according to her the agents did nothing wrong they were relaxed taking their time
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driving along at a reasonable speed for the for the area and the terrain after gathering all the evidence the
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mate investigators began the hard work of reconstructing what caused the accident
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what i'm doing here is called motion analysis i'm using the scaled physical evidence and the scaled
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vehicles to try to determine how the vehicles were moving during particular phases of the collision
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the motion analysis provided the data for a series of critical calculations the first was the momentum of each car
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immediately after the collision momentum is determined by multiplying each car's speed by its weight
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according to the laws of physics when objects collide as in this demonstration their momentum after the impact is equal
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to that before if the investigators could figure out the speed of the two cars as they
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separated immediately after impact they could calculate how fast they were going before the crash
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the investigators knew the weights of both cars by measuring the distance and direction
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they had slid their rotation and the amount of friction they were able to calculate their post impact speeds
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30 miles per hour for the sheriff's car 24 miles per hour for the secret service
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next they looked at the angle at which the two cars had collided the angle of impact in this particular collision
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evaluation was critical to determining how this collision took place mate calculated that the two cars
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collided at a 10 degree angle almost directly head-on they already knew the direction the
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sheriff was traveling from the skid marks so the angle of impact allowed them to calculate the path of the secret
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service car 10 degree approach angle between these two vehicles places the secret service dodge aries within its
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lane of travel and moving slightly from left to right as a potential evasive tactic as impact
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takes place eyewitness testimony had already established that the secret service agents were driving at around 35
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miles per hour the critical question was how fast was deputy sinclair driving sinclair claimed he was going 55 or 60
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miles per hour applying the laws of conservation of momentum mate calculated he was actually
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doing 76 miles per hour when he came into that curve his vehicle was was out of position for the speed that he was
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traveling when he saw traffic coming at him in the eastbound direction he simply
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didn't have enough distance or enough time to safely negotiate the curve he panicked locked up the brakes on the
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patrol car once he did that the patrol car slides straight across the inside of the curve into the opposing traffic lane
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and struck the second secret service vehicle based on its three-week investigation
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the california highway patrol believed that sergeant sinclair was grossly negligent and recommended that he be
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criminally prosecuted i believe the facts were there given the circumstances that you could
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make a case for misdemeanor manslaughter but one man had lingering doubts about the
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investigation attorney charles brun who represented rod sinclair believed something vital
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might have been missed rod kept saying over and over again they were in my lane of travel they were
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heading right at me there was nothing i could do but to hit the brakes was deputy sinclair telling the truth
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brunn hired his own investigators to find out and what they would discover would force
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the highway patrol to reopen their investigation three secret service agents had been
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killed in a near head-on collision with a sheriff's patrol car all the evidence
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indicated that deputy sheriff rod sinclair was solely to blame but then a local photographer don schneider was
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looking at slides of the accident when he discovered a clue the highway patrol had missed
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another skid mark it was a surprise to me to see the mark there because i had not observed a skid mark at the accident
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site and i asked the question of the group that was there hey fellas what is this
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and pointed to the skid mark that i saw on the screen and it was obvious in the matter of
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discussion a few moments later that this had something to do with the secret service car
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attorney charles brunn showed the faint skidmark to a team of accident reconstruction experts from the angle of
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the mark it appeared that the secret service car had been over the center line and was turning back into its own
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lane when it was hit and all of a sudden i thought to myself we have cause here for optimism
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sergeant sinclair would seem as vindicated he said they were coming right at him
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the new evidence suggested sinclair had hit the brakes not because he was going too fast as the highway patrol contended
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but because he saw danger ahead the california highway patrol investigators dismissed the new evidence
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calling it the phantom skid mark the chp experts covered that ground on their hands and
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knees literally inch by inch and never saw that skid mark why they didn't find
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it wasn't clear but the discovery gave new impetus to bruns team of forensic accident
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reconstruction experts paul kafitz a photographer and engineer is an expert in something called
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photogrammetry it's a six dollar word for making measurements from photographs or using
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photographs to make measurements bronze experts needed a map of the accident scene with the skid marks to
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conduct their investigation kafit's job was to reproduce the mark on the road in its exact position so that a
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surveyor could map its location he began by making a 35 millimeter negative of schneider's photograph
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showing the skid mark i put it into a special camera that i take back to the scene i locate
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the exact point from which he took his photograph and then looking through my camera i can
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remark the position of the skid mark on the ground and have a surveyor record it
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the chalk marks help kfitz verify that the mark he recreated was exactly as it appeared in the photo
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once the new survey map was created dr william blyth an expert in applied mechanics and accident reconstruction
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was able to trace the path of the secret service car the results confirmed sinclair's statement
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that the secret service cars were over the center line i think that the amount of the vehicle
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over the center line as i recall was something in the neighborhood of one-third of one-half of the vehicle it
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wasn't fully in the oncoming lane the highway patrol had determined that the collision was virtually head-on
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lithe showed that the sheriff's car had struck at an angle as if agent labarge
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had been turning to the right to get back into his own lane dr blyth determined that the critical
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skid mark was made by one of the front tires on the agent's car it did have dark edges to it which is
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indicative of a front tire when you apply your brakes the weight of the car shifts to the front axle and
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when that happens the front tires tend to cup a little bit and the load is on the edges of the tires on the side walls
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of the tires primarily the critical question was which front tire the highway patrol experts after first
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denying the existence of the skidmark argued it was made by the left if they were correct it meant the secret
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service could not have been over the center line using photogrammetry kfit was able to
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determine the width of the tire that made the skid mark and prove that it was in fact
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the right tire as it happened the right front tire on the wrecked labarge car was almost an inch narrower than the
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other three tires it had been replaced probably by a spare tire at some point and that particular tire mark matched
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only that narrower right front tire proving the skidmark belonged to the secret service car
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was one of two critical issues facing dr blythe what was the sheriff reacting to when he
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applied his brakes was he reacting to his perception that he was going too fast to
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make the corner or was he reacting to some other danger that he saw the highway patrol found sinclair was
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going too fast but dr blythe ran his own test using a patrol car identical to the one sinclair
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was driving the range for the surest vehicle that i found was between 62 and 66 miles an
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hour at that speed sergeant sinclair had no reason to hit his brakes because he could have
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comfortably negotiated the curve that left only one explanation we felt there was negligence on the part
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of the drivers of the first two cars in that entourage in that they crossed the center line
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okay let's begin a test run to help prove these findings brun asked paul kafitz to conduct a visibility
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study like this one recreating what each driver saw an instant before the collision
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the results would reveal another surprising piece of evidence [Music] a high-speed collision
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three secret service agents killed california highway patrol investigators determined that sheriff's deputy rod
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sinclair was solely responsible but then the discovery of a skidmark in this photograph suggested the secret service
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was also at fault the problem was proving it to reconstruct the critical moments
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before deputy sinclair slammed on his brakes attorney braun asked paul kafitz to conduct a visibility study
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what we were trying to find out is did that skid and ultimate loss of control uh start because he perceived that the
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oncoming lead car was in his lane kayfits mounted cameras in vehicles identical to those involved in the
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accident positioning them to record each driver's point of view then based on the physical evidence and
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the calculations of dr blythe he reconstructed the events that preceded the fatal collision
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from this viewpoint you can actually see that the lead car is halfway over the center
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line and the labarge car in front of this car is also a couple of feet over the center line
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now comes the view from the fourth car driven by a key eyewitness mona crocker who told mate investigators she had seen
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the accident happen she testified that at no time did she see any of the three secret service cars
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cross the center line she also testified that she saw the accident occur kafit's reenactment told a different
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story so this is mona crocker's viewpoint and what's important here is that although the lead car
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ahead of her goes halfway over the center line straddles the center line from her
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viewpoint that is never visible because it's around the curve and over the hill
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crocker thought she could see the position of the cars in fact she could not i was actually surprised at
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the result about what mona crocker could or couldn't see i hadn't predicted or
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expected that from the beginning the critical question in the case was always why did deputy sinclair jam on his
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brakes kafit's dramatic reenactment answered the question now from sinclair's viewpoint we can see
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that he sees the lead secret service car straddling the center line just a bit more than a second before he begins to
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skid in a straight line across the highway the last view is that of agent labarge just before the
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fatal crash [Music] based on kafit's powerful reenactment and the work of bruns team of
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investigators a judge ruled that the secret service agents were partially responsible for
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the accident he also ruled that the united states should reimburse mariposa county thirty
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percent of a four million dollar settlement that had been paid to the families of the secret service agents
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killed in the accident i felt good that the judge believed sergeant sinclair that the secret service agents had
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driven across the center line i felt very good about that the verdict was later overturned on a
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technicality but brun and his team of forensic experts had proven their case it is phenomenal it is amazing what they
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can put together and how they can reconstruct an accident and how they can make those small pieces of evidence
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tell a story there's satisfaction when the pieces come together in a case like this and
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other similar cases that was a very powerful presentation and i recall having a lump in my throat
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when i watched it it was as if you were in the driver's seat watching your life come to an end in
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that split second it was a very powerful videotape [Music] ah [Music] you