The criminal trial against John Dungan — the Santa Barbara man accused of intentionally causing the 2019 Highway 154 crash that killed a Solvang woman and her two children — continued Thursday in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, as the court heard from witnesses of the collision and its aftermath.
The head-on crash on Highway 154 occurred on Oct. 25, 2019, when Dungan, 31, was driving toward oncoming traffic and his Chevrolet Camaro rammed into 34-year-old Rebecca Vanessa Bley’s Chevrolet Volt near Cold Spring Bridge.
The impact ejected Bley out of the vehicle and immediately killed her two children, 2-year-old Lucienne Bley Gleason and 4-month-old Desmond Bley Gleason.
A resulting fire also engulfed the Volt and spread to nearby vegetation.
Nicholas Goddard of Los Gatos, who testified in court Thursday morning, said he was driving on Highway 154 to his son’s tournament in Santa Barbara when he saw Dungan’s black Camaro “barreling straight” into oncoming traffic, headed towards Bley’s Volt.
Upon seeing this, Goddard said he braked and steered right to the side of the road and against a hill. While he did not see the actual collision, he did see the Volt rolling toward his GMC Yukon and eventually coming to rest against his driver’s side door.
At this point, Goddard and his son escaped from the car without major injury, just before both the Volt and Yukon were engulfed in flames.
Witness Carrie Purcell said she was driving toward the Chumash Casino when she noticed Dungan’s vehicle to the left of her, going toward oncoming traffic at a speed she described as “very, very fast, maybe 90 mph or more.”
The Camaro’s event data recorder shows that Dungan was driving 119 mph at the point of impact.
Another witness that testified Thursday, Ashton Ellis, said she did not see the collision, but she did stop to help when she saw the Volt and Yukon stopped and severely damaged.
When she could not help get anyone from the Volt — but other bystanders were still trying — Ellis went to move her car away from the fire when someone alerted her of a third vehicle where Dungan was unresponsive, Ellis said.
Ellis said she saw a lot of blood and Dungan was pinned inside the vehicle, so she applied pressure to his head with a tablecloth from her car, attempting to help and talk to him until first responders arrived on scene.
“Thank you for saving my life,” Dungan said during the trial Thursday after Ellis identified him as the driver she aided that day.
Dungan faces three counts of first-degree murder, to which he has pleaded not guilty, and is being held without bail in the County Jail.
The trial is being heard by a jury in Judge Thomas Adams’ courtroom.
— 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.