Prosecution and defense attorneys summarized their cases Thursday as they presented closing statements in the triple-murder trial against a Santa Barbara man accused of deliberately causing the 2019 head-on crash that killed a Solvang woman and her two children.
On Oct. 25, 2019, John Dungan, 31, crashed his Chevrolet Camaro head-on into 34-year-old Rebecca Vanessa Bley’s Chevrolet Volt at a speed of 119 mph on Highway 154 near Cold Spring Bridge.
The force of the impact ejected Bley from the car and immediately killed her two children — 2-year-old Lucienne Bley Gleason and 4-month-old Desmond Bley Gleason.
Investigators believe that Dungan intentionally committed this act with suicidal and homicidal intentions, and he now faces three counts of first-degree murder.
In his closing statement, Deputy District Attorney Stephen Wagner argued that Dungan was in a state of mind called malice aforethought, and asked the jury to consider the totality of the circumstances and look at all evidence as a whole.
“The defendant literally drove right through Vanessa’s car at a speed of 119 mph, killing all three of them immediately,” Wagner said. “His behavior that day was indicative of his intent to kill himself, but he did it with a deadly weapon — his 4,000-pound vehicle.”
Wagner and Deputy District Attorney Megan Chanda reminded the jury of the note that Dungan left for his mother earlier that day — which they referred to as a suicide note — and the text messages he sent to a friend and his parents just before cutting off his GPS device before the collision — in which Dungan said “goodbye” or “have a nice life.”
While defense attorney Jeremy Lessem noted that none of Dungan’s notes explicitly mentioned harming others and that Dungan’s mother said he often would leave “dramatic” notes, Chanda pointed out that the only writings that included the word “goodbye” were the suicide note and a journal entry, both dated Oct. 25, 2019.
Lessem also commended the thorough work of law enforcement and investigators in the case, who gathered “an enormous amount of information.”
“I want you to go through your notes and tell me where it shows [intent to kill],” Lessem said to the jury. “Because it’s not there.”
Wagner and Chanda reviewed the several witnesses who testified throughout the trial, including witnesses to the crash and its aftermath, first responders and investigators, expert witness Scott Peterson, and Dungan’s mother, Geraldine Dungan.
While Dungan’s mother responded to most questions with “I don’t recall” or “I don’t know,” she did describe her son as “purposeful, calculating and manipulative,” who was “someone who can think 10 moves ahead.”
“Was the defendant thinking 10 moves ahead on Oct. 25, 2019?” Wagner said.
Prosecutors reiterated the facts of the collision: Dungan moved into the opposing lane; there was no braking activity as he was barreling toward Bley’s vehicle; witnesses testified seeing no evasive action from Dungan; and that he drove at speeds between 111 mph and 119 mph on the “virtual runway.”
Meanwhile, Lessem argued that Dungan was simply trying to pass a vehicle, but he did not have enough time to get back into his lane before the collision with Bley’s Volt.
“Has [the prosecution] proven murder? This case has been charged in a way where it’s murder or nothing,” Lessem said. “There is only one answer in this case that follows the law, and that is not guilty of murder.”
“Ultimately, this is going to boil down to who do you believe,” Chanda said. “This in no way, shape or form was an accident.”
The jury in Judge Thomas Adams’ courtroom at Santa Barbara County Superior Court began deliberations Thursday afternoon and is scheduled to continue deliberations on Friday morning.
— Noozhawk staff writer Serena Guentz can be reached at sguentz@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.