What Kansas jurors heard about Girl Scout deaths
Illegal U-turns are “commonplace” on the 30-mile stretch of the Kansas Turnpike between Topeka and Admire, a defense attorney for Amber Peery told a Shawnee County District Court jury.
Attorney Vanessa Riebli recalled on Thursday how a Kansas Highway Patrol officer had explained to the jury that drivers in the area make U-turns so often that authorities had to temporarily seal gaps in the guardrails to prevent this.
Riebli stressed that in order to convict Peery of crimes related to the deaths of three Girl Scouts in a highway accident, jurors would have to conclude that her conduct “represented a gross departure from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe under the same circumstances.”
Because drivers turn around so often – and because two other Girl Scout leaders who were traveling in the same caravan with Peery had already done so – Peery’s behavior did not represent a significant deviation, Riebli said.
Amber Peery was convicted of the deaths of three Girl Scouts from Topeka
Riebli spoke during closing arguments in the trial of Peery, whom a Shawnee County District Court jury found guilty late Thursday afternoon of crimes, including five capital felonies, in connection with an Oct. 8, 2022, car crash that killed three Girl Scouts on the Turnpike near Auburn.
The jury found Peery guilty of three counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of aggravated assault, and one count each of failing to maintain lane and making a U-turn on a highway.
The manslaughter charge filed by Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay was in connection with the deaths of Laila El Azri Ennassari and Kylie Lunn, both 9, and Brooklyn Peery, 8. Brooklyn was Amber Peery’s daughter
Amber Peery and her two other passengers – her daughters Carrington Peery, then 5, and Gabriella Ponomarez, then 9 – suffered injuries but survived. Amber Peery’s aggravated assault convictions were related to the injuries sustained by those two girls.
Prosecutor: Everyone knows that drivers are not allowed to make U-turns through gaps
Shawnee County Assistant District Attorney Will Manly addressed the question of whether Peery showed gross negligence in his closing argument Thursday, saying no reasonable person would risk lives by making an illegal U-turn.
“Everyone knows” that drivers shouldn’t do that, Manly said.
He recalled that when potential jurors were asked during jury selection on Monday if they had ever made an illegal turn in a gap on a toll road, one man admitted he had received a ticket for doing so and said he regretted it.
Peery didn’t bother to stop and wait for the traffic to clear, prosecutor says
Manly added that Peery’s recklessness went beyond simply making an illegal U-turn, as she did not even consider it necessary to pull over to the shoulder of the highway and wait for traffic to ease before doing so.
Instead, he said, Peery attempted to make a U-turn from the right lane of the turnpike when she noticed a tractor-trailer following her.
Meanwhile, Manly said, forward-facing video of the tractor-trailer that struck the left rear of Peery’s van as she attempted to turn showed a northbound car approaching the portion of the highway she was attempting to enter.
Riebli replied that Peery had genuinely assumed that the semi-trailer was following her in the right lane and that the road was clear for the U-turn.
The semi-trailer was traveling at 69 miles per hour at the time of the accident
Jurors were also told that in order to convict Peery of manslaughter and/or aggravated assault, they would have to find that she drove recklessly and knowingly, thereby posing a substantial and unjustifiable danger to others.
The jury was told that in reaching their verdict they would also have to consider the fault or lack of fault of the other driver involved, 72-year-old Robert Russell of Huntsville, Alabama.
Video shown at Peery’s trial showed the left rear of her pickup truck being struck by a southbound semi-truck driven by Russell. According to the driver’s testimony, he was traveling 69 mph in a 75 mph zone and using his cruise control.
Russell testified at Peery’s preliminary hearing that he was traveling in the right lane heading south when he saw Peery’s van ahead of him on the right shoulder of the road. He then moved into the left lane heading south.
Riebli emphasized that a forward-facing video taken from Russell’s truck showed that Peery turned from the right southbound lane – not the right shoulder as Russell had said – and that Peery activated his left turn signal before turning.
Riebli said Russell never braked before the impact.
She referred to the testimony of a defense expert during the trial, who had stated that Russell could have avoided the accident entirely by braking, or at least could have rammed the van at the much lower speed of 36 miles per hour.
Prosecutor: “The Kansas Highway Patrol did not do its job”
Riebli added that jurors should have reasonable doubts about Peery’s guilt because the Kansas Highway Patrol failed to pursue numerous investigative lines it should have pursued.
“The Kansas Highway Patrol did not do its job,” she said.
The agency’s investigation was “not even close” to being thorough, competent and complete, Riebli said, describing it as “negligent.”
Riebli said investigators did not look at Russell’s cellphone, nor did they search or photograph the cab area of his truck for evidence of a possible distraction.
In addition, investigators did not question Peery’s surviving passengers until one year and four months after the crash, Riebli said.
Defense attorney claimed: “Something was going on” with the truck driver
She said that while the trucking company Russell worked for, Western Flyer Express, provided investigators with a video from the future of its semi-trailer, it never told them about the existence of another video showing Russell that was shot inside the cab.
This video has since been lost, said Riebli.
That day, “something was going on with Russell,” Riebli said, suggesting that he was “unaware of his surroundings.”
Riebli said the video taken in the cab of the truck might have made a difference in Peery’s case because it revealed more about Russell’s mental state at the time.
Riebli did not mention the name of the shipping company in her closing statement
That company was not among the defendants in a crash-related lawsuit against Peery and the Girl Scouts of Northeast Kansas and Northwest Missouri.
A confidential settlement between the parties involved was discussed at a hearing in June before Pottawatomie County District Judge Jeff Elder, who kept the case files completely sealed.
KHP’s investigative efforts “do not change what she did,” says prosecutor
Manly defended Russell’s failure to brake after moving into the left lane.
“He doesn’t hit the brakes because he’s in the fast lane and the other car is in the other lane,” he said.
The KHP could have done more to investigate the case, Manly said, then pointed to Peery and said, “But that doesn’t change what she did.”
Contact Tim Hrenchir at [email protected] or 785-213-5934.
