Lafayette Manslaughter Case Opens: Caspillo "Legally Unconscious" at Time of Crash

How is it possible that a man could speed down a straight road and plow his BMW into a line of stopped cars without slowing down or hitting the brakes or even so much as swerving to avoid an imminent collision?

That's the question attorneys will attempt to answer this week in the jury trial of David Caspillo, a 41-year-old Tracy man who is facing charges of gross vehicular manslaughter in the 2007 death of a Walnut Creek man.  If convicted, Caspillo could face up to six years imprisonment.

The accident happened in front of Acalanes High School in Lafayette late one March afternoon three years ago when Caspillo's BMW sped down Stanley Blvd. towards Pleasant Hill Road, plowing into a line of cars stopped at a traffic light.  Dale Zenor, a 55-year-old entrepreneur, was the last driver in line, sitting in his Mazda Miata at the back of the lineup that afternoon.  Relatives said he was on his way to Lafayette to visit an elderly aunt who he cared for periodically.

"He was sitting in a car at a red traffic signal waiting to go on with the rest of his life," Deputy District Attorney Simon O'Connell told jurors Tuesday morning. And 30 seconds later, "Caspillo came barreling down Pleasant Hill Road at three times the legal speed limit, barreling into him." 

Jurors listened with furrowed brows as O'Connell told them Zenor's small car was "catapulted and flipped, end over end, to land 250 feet from the point of impact."

The car was so mangled, he said, that eyewitnesses could not discern its make or model.  Zenor was crushed upside down inside the Miata, gasping for his final breaths as witnesses tried in vain to help him, the prosecutor said.

"His body was so twisted in the framework that there was no way to get him out," said Tony Legato, a Martinez man who seemed visibly shaken as he remembered the scene of the accident.  "There was absolutely nothing I could do."

 O'Connell said the driver of the BMW was coming from a business meeting in Walnut Creek.  It was his birthday, and he was on his way to meet someone.  In an effort to circumvent traffic, he was recklessly speeding down side roads, rolling through stop signs and using his on-board navigation system for directions that led him on a circuitous route through Lafayette's side roads, the prosecutor said in opening remarks.

A photograph from the scene of the accident projected onto an overhead screen showed Caspillo's car as it had come to rest against a pole on a grassy, curbed area.  The front end of the car was crushed.  Complaining of neck pain, Caspillo was transported to John Muir Medical Center, where he was held three days for psychiatric observation.

On the way to the hospital, O'Connell said, "A paramedic asked how it happened and he told the paramedic, 'I was using my GPS trying to locate my brother at the time of the crash.'"

Caspillo's attorney denied that could have been a contributing factor.  "We know that he was not goofing off with his GPS at the time of the accident," defense attorney Dirk Manoukian said.  "What happened was a horrific tragedy.  Undisputed.  This case is not about what happened, but how,"

A former county prosecutor, Manoukian said he intends to prove over the course of the trial that his client was "legally unconscious" at the time of the accident. 

Caspillo has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter, but his attorney contends he cannot be held accountable for Zenor's death because he was not aware of what he was doing at the time.  During the lunch recess, Monoukian told reporters that three doctors have concluded Caspillo was suffering from some type of manic, bi-polar episode brought on by an acute incident.  Caspillo, who is married with children, opted to remain in the hospital following his three-day psychiatric evaluation for follow-up mental health care, Manoukian said.

Over the course of the trial, which is expected to continue through next week, Manoukian said he intends to call on various witnesses who will say that Caspillo had been acting strangely in the business meeting before the accident and slurring his speech.  He had not been eating or sleeping regularly and had been traveling a lot, Manoukian said, and some witnesses will tell jurors that Caspillo seemed to be "high."  Tests following the accident did not come back positive for drugs or alcohol. 

Speeding is likely to be a big topic in the trial, especially since the accident occurred in a school zone where the speed limit is 25 mph.  Manoukian doesn't deny his client was speeding, but he says there is no way to accurately determine his speed at the time of the crash and it's not what's at stake.

One witness said he followed Caspillo on his motorcycle in the seconds before the crash and matched speeds with the BMW at 65 mph crossing the intersection of Camino Diablo.  Chuck Poloka of Lafayette said he recognized the car on his way home from work stopped in his neighborhood because he had seen it days earlier and it was one of his favorite cars.  When he first spotted the car, the driver was stopped at the roadside talking on the cell phone, Poloka said.  But by the time Poloka unloaded his work truck and hopped on his motorcycle for a trip to town, the BMW was cruising through a stop sign onto Stanley Blvd., and it failed to stop, Poloka said.  That's when he decided to follow it. 

Poloka said he heard the crash before he saw it, and raced to the scene to find the BMW driver still at the wheel.  "I went to Caspillo and I told him, 'I saw what you did, and I'm going to see to it that you stand trial.'"

Various witnesses described the chaotic scene at the accident, which involved several cars including a red minivan whose driver was injured. Lacey Friedman said she raced to help Caspillo and on finding his cell phone on the front passenger seat of his car tried to help him call his wife.  He was so out of it, she said, that he didn't even respond to her questions after she slapped him in the face as one might do to revive a person.  "I thought if somebody wasn't going to make it that he might want to talk to his loved one."

Friedman got through to his wife and told her there had been accident.  Then, with the wife's consent, she said she kept the phone for safe keeping and continued communication until deciding the next day that she should hand it over to the police in the event cell phone use became an issue.

The accident happened before the 2008 law banning the use of hand-held phones while driving.

Few family members remain to mourn Zenor's death.  A sister who lives out of state could not be reached for comment, and his sole spokesman locally has been his cousin, Greg Mariano.  "He lived a real humble life," Mariano said.  "He didn't have any big homes or cars.  He kept things low key and never spent a lot of money on himself.  He was sort of eccentric, I guess you could say."

Zenor was born in Oakland and raised in Piedmont, graduating from Piedmont High School in 1969. A few of his high school friends who attended the trial opening said he was a shy, soft spoken man who made a living from independent investments and real estate.  He was not married, but he loved his cats and enjoyed spending Wednesday evenings at the Martinez Gun Club.