Arthur Kosieradzki - Press

In-Depth: Drive Thru Mystery

MyFoxTwinCities.com

Tuesday, November 17th 9, 2009 - MyFoxTwinCities.com

MINNEAPOLIS - A family is stunned by the sudden death of a loved one in a car crash. It happened of all places at a drive thru for a fast food restaurant. Was it a freak accident or something else? Jeff Baillon has more about this unusual case and the lesson we can all learn from it. This is one of those stories that sounds more like an episode from a television crime drama. It begins with a mysterious death then leads to all kinds of wild accusations. Eventually science unravels the truth.

He made a habit of stopping at the fast food drive thru. There was nothing unusual about the way he placed his order that day. Then suddenly his car took off through the parking lot. It sailed over a berm, jumped some curbs and islands then smashed into the side of a grocery store some 450 feet away.

Lakeville police officer Kevin O’Neill was first on the scene. He said, “It seemed to not have an easy explanation.

O’Neill said, "he was seated upright in the vehicle, unconscious."

Forty-year-old Les Lawson, a father of three, died a short time later from a severe head injury. O'Neill said, “In 16 years of police work, I can say I haven’t really seen anything like this before."

There was no evidence that Lawson had suffered a seizure or some other medical problem. His wife Janette said, “It just didn’t make any sense."

Investigators found no mechanical or equipment defects with the vehicle that could explain what happened.

They believed Lawson had acted intentionally: case closed.

Janette said, “They were looking for a note, and I didn’t know what they were talking about. They wanted to look for a note because they thought he committed suicide."

The Lawsons were in the process of getting a divorce at the time but Janette says the split was amicable.

"He would have never committed suicide. Never. He was way too larger than life and too happy."

The medical examiner called the manner of death "undetermined", not sure if it was an accident or a suicide. Rumors started swirling around Lakeville. Janette says, “Suspicion is a horrible thing." Janette says she was accused of cutting the brakes on the car and her kids were teased at school.

Lawyer Art Kosieradzki said, "I was in shock actually. I couldn’t believe it." He is a family friend who happens to be a lawyer. “Who goes to a Taco Bell to kill themselves? It just didn’t make any sense whatsoever to me."

It didn’t make sense that a suicidal man would be wearing a seat belt if he intended to die in a crash. And why would he choose such an erratic path to drive into the building? Janette said, “We all knew in our guts what had happened."

The family believed Les' death had to be the result of a freak accident. In order to silence the gossip and to convince the life insurance company they had a legitimate claim they had to find a way to prove it. Kosieradzki said, “This just didn’t make sense."

Kosieradzki's firm agreed to take the case. As they examined police photos of the crash scene they discovered something unusual. A five dollar bill on the floor of Lawson's Dodge Durango.

How did it get there? Was it a clue that could help solve the mystery? Engineering experts were hired to examine the evidence and reconstruct what happened. By comparing the damage from a test crash of a similar vehicle they determined the Lawson Durango was going about 27 miles-an-hour when it hit the side of the grocery store. Hardly fast enough to be fatal to someone protected with a seat belt and an airbag.

Susan Roe is the Dakota County medical examiner. “Since he was belted it didn’t make sense that he received the type of injury he had.”

The medical examiner determined what ultimately killed Lawson was a fracture at the base of his skull. Something that might happen if he was too close to the airbag when it deployed. But remember he was wearing a seat belt and that should've prevented him from getting too close. The engineering experts hired by the family came to a stunning conclusion.

Kosieradzki said, “The airbag did not deploy at the wall."

They created this animation to demonstrate what they believe really happened. Their analysis determined the airbag went off as the vehicle hit the berm in the taco bell parking lot which brings us back to that five dollar bill in the crash photo. It turned out to be a critical piece of evidence.

Kosieradski explained, "If you reach down to pick up a five dollar bill, or anything for that matter on the floor, you’re right at the 3 o’clock position of the airbag."

The engineers believed Lawson intended to use that bill to pay for his order at the drive thru but dropped it as he was approaching the pick up window. In a video they show that by reaching down to pick something up the driver’s right foot automatically steps on the gas pedal.

Notice how close the test engineer's head is to the airbag when he picks up the bill. They determined Lawson was in that position when his car hit the berm. Tissue on the airbag confirmed it.

They concluded the force of the airbag

immediately knocked Lawson unconscious, pushed his body back into an upright position with his foot stuck on the gas. The vehicle kept going until it ran into the store.

The medical examiner said, “I believe, and I think it makes sense in the context of the case, that he was reaching for that money.”

The new evidence convinced Dr. Roe to change the manner of death from "undetermined" to "accidental." With that the insurance company had no choice but to make good on Les' policy and pay his family.

Janette said, “It’s renewing. It gave us our lives back. We were pretty much deceased too until all this was solved.”

There is a lesson in this case for anyone who uses a drive thru. As you pull out your wallet or purse do you have the car in drive or park?

Janette said, “I am more cautious. I try not to be distracted. I try to put the car in park. I think that’s important."

The experts called this case a "classic unintended acceleration event.", when someone steps on the gas thinking it’s the brake. It's happened before in Minnesota. Ten years ago two people died when a police van drove into a crowd of people at the Hollidazzle parade.

Arthur Kosieradzki is a Certified Civil Trial Specialist and a partner in the firm of Sieben, Grose, Von Holtum & Carey in Lakeville.