Manslaughter trial ends in hung jury

The two-day trial of a Concord man accused of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a Lynchburg woman ended Wednesday with a hung jury.

Grady Hyatt, 32, was accused of driving drunk in the early morning hours of Sept. 16 with Lesley Webster on the back of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Prosecutors from the Lynchburg commonwealth’s attorney’s office claimed Hyatt was responsible for Webster’s death after he wrecked the bike on Hurdle Hill Road near the intersection with Link Road.

According to testimony and photos entered as evidence, Hyatt struck a mailbox on Hurdle Hill Road near the intersection between 1 and 1:45 a.m. He was found in the yard of the home with a compound fracture to his leg.

Webster, a 24-year-old Centra Health nurse was found tangled in a nearby tree, barely breathing and with severe head trauma, witnesses said. She was declared brain dead the next day.

“We’ll have to sit down and decide whether it’s in the interest of the commonwealth to retry the case,” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Pflieger said. “At this point, we’re certainly prepared to go forward.”

Joseph Sanzone, Hyatt’s lawyer, said there could be additional litigation over evidence of Hyatt’s blood alcohol level.

Hospital records showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.13, but Sanzone argued the results were unreliable because procedures to secure and test the blood for legal purposes were not followed and because the blood sample was destroyed before Hyatt was charged.

Because the blood evidence was a medical record and not a legal record, prosecutors could not reference the point at which a driver would have otherwise been presumed to be intoxicated, 0.08.

In deciding whether Hyatt was intoxicated and if that drunkenness resulted in Webster’s death, jurors had to rely on a variety of witness testimony about how much alcohol Hyatt drank at Mudpuppy’s that night.

Burton Taylor, a bartender at the Old Forest Road bar, testified Hyatt ordered four 32-ounce pitchers of beer and a liquor drink. Hyatt testified he drank two of the pitchers between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m., and that he may not have finished the second pitcher. He told the jury he bought drinks for other people and that when someone bought him a shot of liquor, he gave it away.

Hyatt said the pitchers held the equivalent of about 2 1/2 servings of beer. He also said he was not drunk when he left the bar.

Bobby Mosley, who testified he came to the bar a little after midnight to pick up his girlfriend, who had gone with Webster to the bar. Mosley was the only witness to testify that the man he saw with Webster in the parking lot was visibly drunk, making out with her.

He could not, however, positively identify Hyatt as being that person.

Hyatt, who is married, denied that Mosley could have seen him in the parking lot, testifying that Mosley left 30 minutes earlier.

After hearing from more than two-dozen witnesses Monday and Wednesday, members of the jury deliberated for a little more than an hour before the foreman told the judge they were deadlocked.

Another hour later, at 5:20 p.m., after being instructed to work harder to reach a verdict, the foreman again notified the judge the jury was hung.

“They have one juror who won’t participate,” Judge Leyburn Mosby told the lawyers before declaring a mistrial.

During the trial, Mosby reduced Hyatt’s charge from aggravated involuntary manslaughter when he found Hyatt was not criminally negligent. Sanzone said the charge cannot be enhanced again as a result of the mistrial.

Correction: In an earlier version of this story, Lesley Webster’s name was spelled incorrectly. Also, the wreck occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 16.