wrong. he said your family was in an accident. and my world just dropped down from underneath me. the scene told the story why did you find? something i don t want to see again. yuck a deadly crash on a dark road. two gone, one barely alive. to a tragic accident. but look closer. can all of the broken glass and twisted metal, was there a clue to a crime? the last thing i wanted to have was to have to take a double fatality and not treat it as a homicide. murder. and no one saw coming. two families in torment. i couldn t deal with it. we were both just a small town trial with big emotions. you took it. you did it. and the verdict that would shake them all. hello, and welcome to dateline. a dangerous highway in big sky country. that was a setting for a deadly crash that would seem to unite to families in shock and heartbreak. except they were about to find out that the truth about what. . ,. happened on that fateful night might b
conclusion you have to read your mind. but you ve been a prosecutor for years, you know accidents happen in the most bizarre ways people do crazy things on the road. but you clearly said this was the situation in which i know what somebody was thinking. when they drove across that lane of traffic and into the car. i just don t know how you can know what she s thinking. i don t know what she s thinking, nobody knows what she was doing at the time. she doesn t know what she is thinking. all i can do is based medicine on what the evidence shows. did the evidence clearly show that justine winter s had made up her mind to commit suicide by driving into an oncoming car? up to the jury now. coming up, everyone just cried about it. authorities comes quickly but the pain and one final question remained when dateline continues. continues. non-drowsy claritin knocks out symptoms
crime? that s what was portrayed. but the actual intent was not that. at all. all rise. district court is now in session. misunderstood or not, by the time justine winter s trial for deliberate homicide started in january 2011, the tide of public opinion had turned as bitter as a montana winter. the hearts of erin thompson s family, too, had toughened. and justine, who showed up in an almost childlike polka dot hair band certainly didn t look like the part of an accused killer facing 200 years behind bars. but there she was. with the two families just a few feet away, she watched investigators testify to a certainty that it was justine s pontiac grand am that crossed the center line. here you can see all the debris from the initial impact of the crash. slamming into erin s subaru so hard it was driven backward into the highway barrier. and crash reconstructionists
welcome back to dateline. i m craig melvin. the prosecution had made their case, now it was the defense s turn. could they convince the jury to see justine winter s text messages in a different light? once again, keith morrison. every day in this montana courtroom the family of now 17-year-old justine winter dutifully shuffled to the front row seats directly behind the defense table. their faces, by their attorneys decree, they say, an intentional blank, emotionless. their apparent demeanor a spur in the hide of an already angry town. but almost no one knew what was really going on. justine s mother, mary, who had been struggling with alcohol, caved in to the stress. tell me how it s changed your life. i ran away for a while.
district court is now in session. misunderstood or not, by the time justine winter s trial for deliberate homicide started in january 2011, the tide of public opinion had turned as bitter as a montana winter. the hearts of erin thompson s family, too, had toughened. and justine, who showed up in an almost childlike polka dot hair band certainly didn t look like an accused killer facing 200 years behind bars. but there she was. with the two families just a few feet away, they heard detectives testify to a certainty that it was justine s pontiac grand am that crossed the center line. here you can see all the debris from the initial impact of the crash. slamming into erin s subaru so hard it was driven backward into the highway barrier. and crash reconstructionists agreed. justine winter s car encroached into the northbound lane striking mrs. thompson s vehicle.