It was a clear April night when Marianna Johnson and David Spencer headed west on the straight stretch of I-80 toward Tooele.
The couple, who started dating just one week before, never made it past Milepost 111.Their car struck a white, full-size pickup truck parked in the middle of the road, just after 12:30 a.m. on April 19, killing Johnson. The driver of the truck, Kevin P. Orgill, had a blood alcohol level of 0.16, twice the legal limit, and didn't even roll down his window when Spencer approached his truck and asked him to call police.
A 3rd District jury of one man and six women needed just over two hours Thursday to convict Orgill, 31, of automobile homicide, a third-degree felony.
The guilty verdict was Orgill's third DUI conviction in Salt Lake County. His first came in 1994, the second just six days before the fatal encounter that left Johnson dead and her family and boyfriend wondering what led Orgill to park his truck on the freeway.
"It's sad that it takes this long to get this kind of person off the street," Spencer said outside the courtroom.
It was even harder for Spencer and Jo Anne Elder, Johnson's mother, to listen to defense attorney William Parsons III say the accident was Johnson's fault.
Parsons argued that although Orgill had been drinking and driving and was blocking the entire left lane and part of the right lane, Johnson caused the fatal accident by not using her high beams and not reacting in time.
"She's not paying attention," Parsons argued in his closing statements. "She doesn't see the truck until it's too late. She was the cause of the accident."
In his closing argument, prosecutor Paul Parker said the accident would never have happened if Orgill hadn't been so intoxicated and parked his vehicle perpendicular across the road.
"You have been asked in many ways to strain at a minnow and swallow a whale," Parker told jurors. "The whale is what the defendant did."
Elder had to leave the courtroom several times during trial testimony and was in tears outside the courtroom Thursday afternoon.
"It's very difficult to lose a child," Elder said. "For them to question that my baby was negligent was really, really hard for us."
Parsons said he was "disappointed but not surprised" by the verdict and said he felt he had a "realistic" defense.
Parsons brought in an accident reconstructionist who testified Johnson would have had three to four seconds to see Orgill's truck if she'd had her high beams on. Utah Highway Patrol trooper Scott Reynolds testified he did not investigate whether Johnson had her high beams on or not.
The state's case against Orgill revolved around Spencer's testimony as well as troopers who investigated the accident scene and spoke with Orgill that night.
Spencer, 20, broke down numerous times as he testified how he and Johnson's car hit the truck. Spencer said the truck's headlights were not on.
Johnson was driving 70-75 mph when Spencer said he saw "a flash of something white directly in front of us."
"I saw the flash and was about to turn to Marianna to see if she had seen anything, and then she screamed out because the truck was in front of us," Spencer said. "She hit the brakes and swerved as hard as she could to the right trying to avoid it."
The front left side of their car hit the back of the truck, lifting up the truck and pushing it into the emergency lane on the left, Spencer said. The car came to a stop after it hit a fence on the right side of the road. The driver's side roof was completely taken off, Reynolds said.
After the accident, Spencer said he got out of the car and pounded on Orgill's window to ask him if he had a cellular phone to call 911.
"He just looked around, he didn't know what was happening," Spencer said. "He didn't roll down the window at all. He put his hands up on the steering wheel and just looked straight ahead."
After the guilty verdict, Judge Timothy Hanson ordered Orgill, who had been on electronic monitoring, taken into custody.
"I'm not all convinced that Mr. Orgill doesn't pose a risk to this community based upon what I've heard about his past DUI convictions," Hanson said.
Hanson will hand down Orgill's sentence Dec. 20.