WOODLAND — Autopsy photos of the woman he’s accused of killing in a high-speed crash sent Steven Hendrix into breakdown mode Friday, his outburst carried out in view of the jury hearing his murder trial.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” Hendrix repeated in between loud sobs, which began when Deputy District Attorney Amanda Zambor displayed a photograph showing victim Cynthia Jonasen’s disfigured arm and battered torso — some of the numerous injuries she sustained in the Feb. 24, 2016, collision on Second Street in Davis.
“Please just get me out of here,” Hendrix said as his public defenders, Teal Dixon and Stephen Betz, patted his shoulders and tried to calm him down. “I don’t want to be here no more.”
The emotional display prompted Yolo Superior Court Judge Paul Richardson to call a break in the proceedings, during which Hendrix was taken to an adjacent holding room to compose himself.
Later, Richardson denied Zambor’s request to remove Hendrix from the courtroom during the remainder of the autopsy testimony to avoid future disruptions, though he did admonish the jury “to disregard anything you saw and heard” during the outburst.
It occurred during the testimony of Dr. Jason Tovar, chief forensic pathologist for the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office, who described the blunt-force injuries Hendrix allegedly caused when he broadsided Jonasen’s sedan at nearly 80 mph as she pulled out from Cantrill Drive.
The wounds extended from Jonasen’s scalp to her lower legs, the most severe being what Tovar called the “internal severing” of the spinal cord at the base of Jonasen’s skull.
“That would have been an immediate cause of death,” Tovar told the jury.
Hendrix, 33, is charged with second-degree murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence causing injury and child endangerment.
Prosecutors allege that he sped recklessly down Second Street while high on marijuana and methamphetamine, acting with conscious disregard for other motorists and the six passengers — two women and four children — in his own vehicle.
His attorneys have called the collision “a tragic accident,” saying their client was trying to get his passengers to a local homeless shelter on time, and that he was distraught to learn of Jonasen’s death.
Jonasen’s daughters Heather and Kelly Jonasen, who witnessed Hendrix’s breakdown Friday, said afterward they have no illusions that it stemmed from empathy for their family.
“This is real for him now,” Heather Jonasen said. “He wants to go home, and I think that he’s sincerely sorry for himself.”
“He has shown little remorse over this last year,” added Kelly Jonasen. “He said, ‘I don’t want to be here.’ We never wanted to be here under these circumstances, but because of his reckless disregard for life, we’re all here now.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene