{"id":1311783,"date":"2019-06-24T22:04:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T04:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/jury-finds-rifle-man-guilty-of-drunken-driving-resulting-in-the-deaths-of-two-of-his-friends\/"},"modified":"2019-06-24T22:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T04:04:00","slug":"jury-finds-rifle-man-guilty-of-drunken-driving-resulting-in-the-deaths-of-two-of-his-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/jury-finds-rifle-man-guilty-of-drunken-driving-resulting-in-the-deaths-of-two-of-his-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury finds Rifle man guilty of drunken driving, resulting in the deaths of two of his friends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Friends of Cody Christopher, who dutifully sat through the trial in support of the defendant, wait for the jury to deliver a verdict outside the 9th District courtroom in Glenwood Springs Monday evening.<\/strong>
Thomas Phippen\/Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

A Garfield County jury on Monday found Cody Christopher guilty of all charges, including two counts of vehicular homicide, for a December 2017 rollover crash north of Rifle that killed two adult men and seriously injured a 10-year-old boy.<\/p>\n

The jury delivered its verdict after more than four hours of deliberation, just before 9 p.m., concluding five days of trial plus one day of jury selection.<\/p>\n

An emotional Christopher, 41, exited the courthouse in Glenwood Springs surrounded by family and friends, thanking them for coming. Between 20 and 30 of Christopher\u2019s friends attended the trial each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real tragedy,\u201d said defense attorney Lawson Wills in closing arguments before the jury deliberated. Christopher \u201clost two of his very best friends, but ladies and gentlemen, don\u2019t make more of a tragedy of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said that Christopher, 41, drank to intoxication and then drove his two friends, Matthew Smith, 36, and Trent Johnson, 41, as well as Johnson\u2019s then-10-year-old son, up the dirt Puma Paw Road several miles north of Rifle on Dec. 28, 2017.<\/p>\n

The Ford Excursion rolled off the road and into a creek bed, killing Johnson and Smith, and injuring the boy. Christopher also was injured in the crash.<\/p>\n

WHO TO BELIEVE<\/p>\n

Neither the prosecution\u2019s evidence from witnesses nor the defense\u2019s theory of the events were completely consistent.<\/p>\n

To find him guilty, the jury had to find that Christopher drank to excess \u2014 apparently reaching a blood alcohol level of .237, three times the legal limit to drive \u2014 then got behind the wheel and drove about half a mile from the ranch buildings before driving off the cliff.<\/p>\n

The strongest evidence of Christopher\u2019s guilt may have come from Christopher himself. He told investigators in the early morning hours, while he was in treatment for head injuries and, according to his mother, not making any sense, that he was driving.<\/p>\n

Wills presented the theory that Christopher was not driving. In his testimony Friday, Christopher said he was not certain whether he was driving at the time of the crash, but did remember switching seats with some in the car just before the crash.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said that story was too convenient.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is only months later that the defendant tells you he wasn\u2019t driving, and if he was, he wasn\u2019t drunk,\u201d 9th District prosecutor Sarah Nordgaard said in closing arguments.<\/p>\n

Wills focused on the inconsistencies and missteps in the prosecution\u2019s case, including chain of custody issues related to blood drawn from Christopher, selective testing of DNA evidence from the crash, and improper interview tactics.<\/p>\n

On Friday alone, two first responders testified during the prosecution\u2019s rebuttal that they were the first to arrive on the scene, and that the other showed up later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys can\u2019t even agree on who showed up first,\u201d Wills said.<\/p>\n

The prosecution\u2019s case, Wills said, really rested on the testimony of Colorado State Patrol Sgt. David Everidge and CSP Trooper Kirk Bartunek, who spoke to Christopher while he was disoriented and in treatment at Grand River Hospital and later at St. Mary\u2019s Hospital in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

Wills also presented Christopher as courageous for dealing with the situation, while prosecutor Nordgaard framed the question before the jurors as \u201cthe hard evidence the people presented to you, or the defendant\u2019s excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant doesn\u2019t get a pass just because he killed two of his friends,\u201d Nordgaard said. \u201cThe defendant doesn\u2019t get a pass just because he helped a child, who just saw his dead father, get back to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the two counts of vehicular homicide for the deaths of Johnson and Smith, Christopher was found guilty of vehicular assault for the injuries to the 10-year-old, child abuse, driving under the influence of alcohol and reckless driving.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friends of Cody Christopher, who dutifully sat through the trial in support of the defendant, wait for the jury to deliver a verdict outside the 9th District courtroom in Glenwood Springs Monday evening.Thomas Phippen\/Post Independent A Garfield County jury on Monday found Cody Christopher guilty of all charges, including two counts of vehicular homicide, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1311783","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 15:46:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1311783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1311783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1311783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1311783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1311783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}