BY KIM SMITH
Odessa American
Prosecutors seeking to convict an Odessa woman accused of killing twin 6-year-olds with her car almost three years ago began their case Monday showing a body cam video taken within minutes of the incident.
Angelica Garcia, 38, is charged with two counts of intoxication manslaughter in the July 3, 2019, deaths of Mia and Mya Coy and is being tried in Ector County’s 70th District Court before Judge Denn Whalen.
Odessa Police Cpl. Chris Adams testified he was coming back from an assignment in Midland when he was dispatched to the north service road of East Highway 80 near the New Life Church right around twilight. He’d been told children had been struck by a vehicle and as he approached the scene, he was waved over by a bystander.
The rookie officer had just completed field training a month prior to the incident and jurors vicariously lived through the scene as captured by Adams’ body camera.
As he jumps out of his patrol unit, Adams is assailed by the sounds of wailing and yelling. Walking quickly, he can see the two girls sprawled on the ground, heads nearly touching as their mother, Agueda Coy, and a man administer CPR to each of them with a small crowd hovering. Someone explains to him that their mother is a nurse at the same time several others are pointing Garcia out to him, one of them using an expletive.
As Adams moves toward Garcia, she tries to get to the children and he pulls her back and away. He makes her sit on the ground out of sight of the children as she repeatedly pleads with him, “Please don’t tell me they’re dead. Please God.” Garcia’s husband, Cornell Hunt, tells Adams they’d both just come from Toby’s Lounge at the MCM Grande Hotel and Fun Dome and Adams asks him why he let her drive. Hunt responds that he didn’t, but the rest of his answer is lost to the sounds around them. At one point, Garcia says, “I thought I was going home.” Someone then summons Adams for help and he asks another officer to watch Garcia. The twins’ grandmother is having problems breathing and needs an ambulance. A small child is heard pleading, “Please help us” as the older woman sits in a chair obviously in shock.
During her opening statement, Assistant Ector County District Attorney Melissa Williams explained to jurors that the Coy family had owned and operated a firework stand near East Highway 80 and Club drive for a couple of years.
On the night the twins died, the entire family had gathered at the stand to discuss what they were going to do for Independence Day. As the adults planned, the children ran around and played.
On that night, Garcia and her husband spent three hours drinking at Toby’s Lounge and the evidence will show Garcia had seven cherry vodkas in that time frame, Williams said.
The couple had arrived separately and they left separately, with Garcia in the lead on the frontage road, Williams said.
Garcia was three minutes away from the lounge when she went through the stop sign at Club Drive, hit a curb, then the twins and then a light generator – all without braking, Williams said.
There was “no hope” for the twins, who were sent flying some distance, and they were pronounced dead at the hospital, Williams said. The prosecutor told jurors they’ll hear what tests showed Garcia’s blood alcohol level was that night.
Under questioning from Williams, Adams testified Garcia smelled strongly of alcohol, had urinated on herself, was unsteady on her feet and was slurring her words.
Defense attorneys Michael McLeaish and Jason Leach waived their opening statement.
Adams, under cross-examination from McLeaish, acknowledged Adams may have urinated on herself because she had been injured, frightened or shocked. He also said he was unaware that Adams had injured her mouth and later required stitches. Adams acknowledged the injury might be why she sounded as though she was slurring her words.
The officer told McLeaish he was unaware the frontage road used to go all the way to Midland.
Adams testified he took Garcia’s husband to OPD for a Breathalyzer test after he refused to submit to field sobriety tests at the scene. Although Adams said he smelled alcohol on Hunt’s breath and believed he might be intoxicated, he blew a 0.025, well below the legal limit of 0.08.
He denied McLeaish’s suggestion that he took Hunt into custody to obtain more evidence against Garcia.
