Closing arguments in homicide case
Fayette County prosecutors on Monday asked for a first-degree murder conviction in the death of a 30-year-old Brownsville woman, while the defense attorney for her husband suggested the woman committed suicide.
This morning, jurors will hear the charge of the law and begin deliberating in the criminal homicide case lodged against Ronald Higinbotham, 47, of Brownsville. State police alleged he ran over his wife, Carmen Higinbotham, just before midnight on June 20, 2009. The couple left a party and drove about 1.7 miles toward their home before the alleged killing occurred.
Ronald Higinbotham told police that his wife jumped from the car, that he may have run over her and in a later statement said that another car hit her and then hit his Hyundai Tiburon.
Forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht testified that Carmen Higinbotham could have died from skull fractures and hemorrhages to her brain or from the 17 rib fractures and crushed sternum she sustained.
In his closing, Assistant District Attorney Douglas S. Sepic called what happened to Carmen Higinbotham “a real-life horror story,” and said Ronald Higinbotham’s “true nature was revealed by his actions” as he left the scene and drove 13 minutes to his home in Brownsville before he called 911.
Then, Sepic argued, he devised a story to make himself out to be a victim.
“The defendant had 13 minutes to find a way to weasel out of responsibility in this case,” Sepic said. “In the twisted world of the defendant, where up is down and down is up, blaming Carmen is the theme.”
“If Carmen set him up, why is she the one laying dead on the road? … But by his self-serving, sugar-coated version of events, he’s the victim because she cheated on him,” Sepic argued.
Sepic suggested that when the couple left the party they attended, Carmen Higinbotham’s alleged infidelity was on his mind.
“The defendant decided he was going to end the marriage on his terms instead of hers,” he argued to jurors. “If he couldn’t have her, no one was going to have her.”
He described the scene as one of “horrific circumstances,” and said it “bears the marks of a killer who was scored and jealous.”
In his closing, defense attorney Peter J. Daley reiterated his earlier remarks that the case is “complicated.”
He said that in the 90 seconds it took the Higinbothams to drive 1.7 miles from the party they’d left, something happened. He noted that people at the party testified that they seemed fine there, and were sitting and drinking together.
Daley suggested that Carmen Higinbotham jumped out of the moving car and committed suicide.
“Carmen Higinbotham jumped out of the car, right on the road, and hit her head and fractured her skull. That’s what I think,” Daley argued to jurors.
“There’s no one here to prove that he was a direct result of her death. Nothing. No one,” Daley told jurors.
“No matter what they want you to believe, they don’t have the evidence,” he told jurors, asking for acquittal. “Carmen Higinbotham, in an act of suicide, jumped out of the car.”
Jurors also heard testimony from several other witnesses, including two experts who discussed Ronald Higinbotham’s mental capacity.
Dr. Antoinette Woods, a defense expert, testified she gave Ronald Higinbotham an IQ test that gauged his full-scale IQ as 62, which would put him in the range of mild mental retardation. However, Woods testified, to be deemed mildly mentally retarded, he would had to have an IQ within that range before the age of 18, and he did not.
While she could not say Higinbotham was mildly mentally retarded, Woods said that the lower IQ was indicative of an inability to “connect the dots.” Daley asked Woods why he would drive home and call his mother instead of calling 911.
“He has a disconnect of the understanding of the gravity and seriousness of what’s going on,” she testified.
Woods testified that she could not say that he could not form specific intent to kill, necessary for a first-degree murder conviction, but did say he has a diminished capacity to understand that specific intent.
She also said that he could understand the consequences of hitting someone with a car. Woods said that he would, because it’s concrete.
She noted that with a blood-alcohol content of .141 percent two hours after the incident, Ronald Higinbotham’s functions would have been lower.
Dr. Bruce Wright, a prosecution expert, testified that he examined Ronald Higinbotham and found that he has below average intelligence – not mental retardation – and was capable of forming specific intent to kill.
“He does not have a psychiatric illness or mental disorder necessary to say he has diminished capacity,” Wright testified. “There’s not a part of the brain that controls specific intent to kill. Globally, he was able to carry out very specific actions.”
“Despite his below average intelligence … he had the cognitive function to carry out very specific actions and for the specific intent to kill,” Wright testified.