Doc: driver's BAC was .32 after crash

SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. (WOOD) - The man allegedly responsible for killing a woman and two children in a car wreck last month admitted to officers he had probably been drinking "too much" that night. But an MSP expert told a packed courtroom the two little girls likely would have survived if they had been in car seats.   

An emergency room doctor said David Johnson's blood alcohol content (BAC) level was .32 when he allegedly smashed his Ford F-150 head-on into a Pontiac Grand Prix driven by Brittney King.

Johnson, 32, faces 11 felonies related to the head-on collision that killed King and her nieces Cassadi and Kandice Berryhill n Geneva Township on Nov. 13.

King was 24. The Berryhill girls were 4 and 2.

Before the courtroom proceeding began, King's mother told 24 Hour News 8 she forgives Johnson and hopes he is remorseful. Not all the victims' family members feel the same way.

"He took the lives of my babies and my best friend," a crying Alisha Quinones, the girls' mother, said outside the courthouse.

Quinones, who had to identify her daughters' bodies, said the loss hurts every day, but helps to talk about her little girls.

"They were both just so full of life and energy," said Quinones.

But for Quinones' fiancé and the girls' father Justin Berryhill -- a passenger in the car that night -- talking about them makes it worse. He said he doesn't care about the physical pain he's in every day, he had an abrasion on his face and still walks with crutches, it's the emotional pain he can't get over.  

"I just wish the worst for [Johnson] and I'll never forgive him for what he's done," said Berryhill.

As the family of the people he allegedly killed looked on, Johnson walked on crutches into a South Haven courtroom for his preliminary exam. Members of the King and Berryhill families could be heard weeping.

A preliminary exam is held to determine if there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial.

King was driving a Pontiac Grand Prix just after 7 p.m. that night near the intersection of Phoenix Road/County Road 388 and 62nd Street in Geneva Township. King was behind the wheel, Justin Berryhill was in the front passenger seat and his two daughters were in the back seat.  

Witnesses at that time told Van Buren County Sheriff's deputies at the scene that the driver of a Ford F-150 was traveling west, sped up and crossed the center line to pass an Oldsmobile Alero.

During the pass attempt, the pickup truck collided head-on with the Grand Prix. The pickup truck then struck the Alero. An expert testified in court Wednesday that the pickup truck rolled on its side after basically going over the Grand Prix.  

An MSP reconstructionist testified that King likely didn't have half a second to respond before impact. Sgt. James Campbell testified that King likely didn't have any way to avoid the wreck, and that she didn't hit the brakes in the seconds before the air bags went off.  

Campbell said she likely didn't have time to react because "she didn't react at all."

South Haven Police Chief Tom Martin took the stand Wednesday afternoon, saying he was heading home after work when he came upon the wreck. He said he initially thought it was foggy, but then realized that was smoke from the accident across the road.  

Martin said when he came upon the Grand Prix, Berryhill kept repeating, "my baby, my baby." Martin said King was alive immediately after impact.

Martin and another responder eventually looked in the back seat of the car.  

"I thought it was just a pile of clothes," said Martin. "He said his baby's back there."

Martin described the two girls after the crash. He said it was clear that Kandice was deceased, but that Cassidi was still clinging to life. Her mother told 24 Hour News 8 she didn't know that one of her girls lived through the wreck, but she said she had a feeling.  

"[Martin] told me tha t he had held her really tight and said a prayer with her and that she tried to say something to him, but he couldn't understand what it was," Quinones said outside the courthouse. "But he could tell she wasn't in any pain and that was my main concern. I just didn't --- I just needed to know that she didn't hurt at all. But I didn't know until today that she had lived."

The first witness was a trauma surgeon from Bronson Hospital. Johnson's blood alcohol content at the hospital was .32 -- four times the legal limit in Michigan.

Then the driver of the Alero testified Johnson was tailgating her before the wreck.

Berryhill took the stand, describing King as "his best friend" and broke down when he mentioned his daughter's names.

He was asked by Johnson's defense attorney if the girls were in car seats. They "weren't available to me," he said, but "I had them both belted in" in the back seat.

Campbell, the accident reconstructionist, said if the girls had been in child seats it would have definitely made a difference, and that they likely would have lived.  

"To me, it's irrelevant," Berryhill