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Light Rain Witnesses testify in Hempstead Turnpike fatal DWI crash case
Trial to wrap up this week, expected to be in jury’s hands by Monday
Before dawn on a balmy August morning in 2009, a medical technician set off on what was supposed to be her usual meal break from her overnight shift at the Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow.
She drove west on Hempstead Turnpike with the intention of stopping at the White Castle in Hempstead, about two miles away. What she apparently witnessed led her to a Mineola courtroom 14 months later, where she testified in front of a jury on Oct. 28.
Her testimony came on day six of the trial of James Farr, an ex-Marine from Garden City who is accused of striking and killing two brothers, East Meadow natives, on Hempstead Turnpike at about 4:15 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2009, while driving drunk. Farr was charged with multiple counts of DWI, vehicular manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, and faces a possible sentence of up to 15 years in jail.
In her testimony, Lenore Kirkland, the medical technician, said it appeared that the vehicle in front of her hit something as she approached the intersection of Hempstead Turnpike and Conte Square Boulevard while driving in the center lane. Then, she explained, after seeing what appeared to be a hat roll into the right lane and then noticing a body in the street, she drove around it and pulled over.
Kirkland walked toward the scene and saw a man. “He said, ‘Call the police. Call 911,’” Kirkland recalled, and she did so. She said she understood what the man was saying and that he did not appear to be staggering or swaying.
She could not recall whether the man who sat across from her in the courtroom was the same man. Kirkland testified that she did not have reason to believe that the driver in front of her had been speeding or driving recklessly.
Kirkland was one of several witnesses in the trial, which began with opening arguments on Oct. 20. Several relatives of the two victims, Joseph and Thomas Occhiogrosso of East Meadow, sat on one side of the courtroom as witnesses and law enforcement officers testified.
