here for optimism. sergeant sinclair, it would seem, was vindicated. he said they were coming right all the him. the new evidence suggested that sinclair had hit the brakes, not because he was going too fast, as the highway patrol contended, but because he saw danger ahead. the california highway patrol investigators dismissed the new evidence, calling it the phantom skid mark. the chp experts covered that ground on their hands and knees, literally inch by inch, and never saw that skid mark. why they didn t find it wasn t clear, but the discovery gave new impetus to brunn s team of forensic accident reconstruction experts. paul kayfetz, a photographer and engineer, is an expert in something called photogrammetry. it s a $6 word for making measurements from photographs
argued it was made by the left. if they were correct, it meant the secret service could not have been over the center line. using photogrammetry, kayfetz was able to determine the width of the tire that made the skid mark and prove that it was, in fact, the right tire. as it happened, the right front tire on the wrecked labarge car was almost an inch narrower than the other three tires. it had been replaced probably by a spare tire at some point. and that particular tire mark matched only that narrower right front tire. proving the skid mark belonged to the secret service car was one of two critical issues facing dr. blythe. what was the sheriff reacting to when he applied his brakes? was he reacting to his perception that he was going too fast to make the corner, or was he reacting to some other danger
but then the discovery of a skid mark in this photograph suggested the secret service was also at fault. the problem was proving it. to reconstruct the critical moments before deputy sinclair slammed on his brakes, attorney brunn asked paul kayfetz to conduct a visibility study. what we were trying to find out is, did that skid and ultimate loss of control start because he perceived that the oncoming lead car was in his lane. kayfetz mounted cameras in vehicles identical to those involved in the accident, positioning them to record each driver s point of view. then, based on the physical evidence and the calculations of dr. blythe, he reconstructed the events that preceded the fatal collision. from this viewpoint, you can
or using photographs to make measurements. brunn s experts needed a map of the accident scene with the skid marks to conduct their investigation. kayfetz s job was to reproduce the mark on the road in the exact position so a surveyor could map its location. he began by making a 35-milimeter negative of schneider s photograph showing the skid mark. i put it into a special camera that i take back to the scene. i locate the exact point from which he took his photograph, and looking through my camera, i can re-mark the position of the skid mark on the ground and have a surveyor record it. the chalk marks helped kayfetz verify that the mark was exactly as it appeared in the photo. once the new survey map was created, dr. william blythe, an expert in applied mechanics and
in fact, she could not. from the beginning, the critical question in the case was always, why did deputy sinclair jam on his brakes? kayfetz s dramatic re-enactment answered the question. now, from sinclair s viewpoint, we can see that he sees the lead secret service car straddling the center line just a bit more than a second before he begins to skid in a straight line across the highway. the last view is that of agent labarge just before the fatal crash. based on kayfetz s powerful reenactment and the work of brunn s team of investigators, a judge ruled that the secret service agents were partially responsible for the accident. he also ruled that the united