While defense attorney Jay Clark got Rogers to admit there is a chance Sarah Widmer may have suffered a first ever seizure or heart problem, he said it’s not likely.
Over a nine year period, there were 1,222 sudden deaths of females between the ages 20 and 24, in Ohio, Rogers said. Of those deaths, nine were in drownings and two of those were in bathtubs.
Rogers, an emergency room physician who is also a former police officer and trains paramedics, called the likelihood Sarah Widmer suffered a medical emergency and drowned “vanishingly small.”
The prosecution alleges Widmer, 30, drowned Sarah Widmer, his wife of only four months in their Warren County home. This is the third time he has been tried in Warren County Common Pleas Court for her drowning death in the bathtub. The other two were declared mistrials.
Under questioning by the prosecution, Rogers said he found no fault with the way first responders handled their jobs on the night of Aug. 11, 2008 when Sarah Widmer died.
He said they correctly stayed at the scene and tried to revive her rather than rushing off to the hospital immediately. The incomplete run records the defense have focused on didn’t bother him. Rogers said he relies on what medics tell him verbally.
“I cannot fault what I see on the record, or for them trying to intubate her,” he said. “Drownings are very difficult.”
Clark started laying the groundwork for his questioning of Jennifer Crew with Rogers, querying him about the physical effects of drugs like methodone.
Rogers said the drug can cause cognitive and performance difficulties, but should not effect memory.
Crew, 36, a former manager at an Iowa gentlemen’s club, is expected to testify an inebriated Widmer confessed to her during a phone conversation that he killed his wife, Sarah Widmer, and what led him to do it.
According to the defense, Crew has a prescription drug problem and a lengthy criminal record. They said Crew contacted Widmer electronically and by telephone after his case was aired on NBC’s “Dateline” in September 2009.
Legal expert Ian Friedman says Crew likely will have a tough time convincing the jurors she is telling the truth, especially if she just regurgitates what has been reported.
“Certainly the jury will consider and likely disregard her testimony if it is nothing more than what a person could have learned from ‘Dateline’ or another program,” he said. “If that is the case, coupled with her checkered past, at best her testimony may be determined worthless. It could hurt the state if the jury believes that the state was relying upon her weak testimony to convict Mr. Widmer.”
Defense attorney Lindsey Gutierrez announced during opening statements last week that phone records show no calls from Widmer’s phone when she said she received the confession. The length of the call, over an hour long, also doesn’t jibe with phone logs. Friedman said it would be difficult for Crew to explain that information.
Last week, Warren County Coroner Dr. Russell Uptegrove and an epilepsy and sleep expert from Ohio State University testified on Friday that bruising on Sarah Widmer’s body was consistent with someone applying compressive pressure and or blunt force on her head and neck.
Dr. James Layne Moore admitted the young bride could have suffered a first ever seizure, but said none of her medical records indicated that was likely.
Sarah Widmer complained of a severe headache, stomach pains and a sore neck the day she died. Moore said he wasn’t aware of the maladies Sarah suffered that day. The defense contends the livid bruising and internal hemorrhages Uptegrove found during his autopsy were caused by forceful life saving measures.
Uptegrove pointed out there appeared to be a break in the bruising on the neck, indicating it was not one continuation of the hemorrhages cause by the IV stick in the jugular vein.
First responders have testified again in the case they became suspicious when they found a virtually dry drowning scene on Aug. 11, 2008. Prosecutors maintain Widmer drowned his wife earlier in the evening and staged his 911 call. Only her hair was damp according to medics. One witness who has yet to appear is Hamilton Twp. Fire Lt. Brian Dapper.
Last spring, Dapper took the stand after two of his EMTs and police Sgt. Lisa Elliott. He challenged their testimony regarding Sarah Widmer’s dry body. Paramedic Jeff Stevens and EMT Jeff Teague testified last week that in order to hook up the heart monitor, they had to roll her body over to attach a defibrillator pad on her back. They both said they could not and would not have attached the pad if her back was wet.
Dapper previously testified a defibrillator pad could not have been put under Sarah Widmer’s back if continuous chest compressions were given. Dapper said he wasn’t there when his men hooked up the heart monitor, but he said the pads had to be on her front torso.
There are two ways to place heart monitor pads, one on the front of the body and one on the back or both on the front.
About the Author