Trial for driver in St. Patrick’s deadly wrong-way crash held under tight media restrictions
The coverage of a highly publicized murder case is being held under tight media restrictions.
Abby Michaels’ trial entered its second day Tuesday and so far, videographers and photographers have not been allowed to show the face of any prosecution witnesses.
Audio recording has been allowed for each witness and prosecutors have not commented on the reasons for the unusual approach to the trial testimony.
>> Abby Michaels Trial: Defense blames medical condition for wrong-way crash that killed 3
The 25-year-old Xenia woman is accused of six counts of murder and three counts of felonious assault stemming from a wrong-way crash that killed three people on St. Patrick’s Day, 2019.
The defense, in their opening arguments, claimed that Michaels has long suffered from psychogenic seizures and, in fact, was suffering from a seizure the night that she drove the wrong way on Interstate 75 and caused a crash that killed three members of the Thompson family from Mason.
Timmy, Karen, and their 10-year-old daughter Tessa Thompson died when Michaels struck them head-on as they traveled southbound in the southbound lanes of I-75 in Moraine and Michaels, after driving through an emergency crossover, drove northbound in those southbound lanes.
The prosecution has maintained that Michaels was upset about her marriage ending, as her now ex-husband filed for divorce two days before the fatal crash.
Prosecutors have said Michaels was upset, angry and before the event and threatened to “drive backward” on I-75 in a phone message to Kyle Pastorelle, her then-estranged husband.
There have now been eight witnesses called to the stand as the prosecution presents its case. None of those witnesses have allowed their faces to be recorded as they testified.
Several of those individuals have been witnesses on public payrolls, including Moraine police officers and firefighters and an investigator from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
