MINEOLA (1010 WINS) -- A man who drove the wrong way down a highway following a night of heavy drinking, slamming head-on into a wedding limousine and killing the chauffeur and a 7-year-old flower girl, was convicted Tuesday of two counts of murder.
Martin Heidgen, 25, was charged with murder, a rarity in driving-while-intoxicated fatal crashes, after prosecutors said he showed a ``depraved indifference to human life'' by ignoring drivers on the Long Island highway who flashed their headlights and honked their horns as he drove into traffic.
A scream echoed through the courtroom as the murder conviction was read, with several of the jurors in tears as the slain girl's mother collapsed sobbing into her weeping husband's arms. The verdict followed a gut-wrenching, five-week trial that was filled with gruesome images and testimony.
Jennifer Flynn, who testified about holding daughter Katie's decapitated head immediately after the wreck, praised the jury for its decision.
``It was the right verdict,'' she said. ``I'm happy for that.''
Jurors, who deliberated for five days, also saw a horrifying video from the limousine's surveillance camera that showed Heidgen's pickup truck barreling toward the car moments before the crash. It ended with the metal-on-metal crunch of the two vehicles colliding.
Prosecutors will ask for the maximum of 25 years to life at the Nov. 20 sentencing for Heidgen, who sat stoically through the verdict. Jurors had a choice of convicting him on the lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter, which carries up to 15 years in prison.
Family members of the limo driver also were pleased with the verdict.
``Thank God,'' said Keith Rabinowitz, son of the dead limo driver. ``It's about time. I'm glad that he was prosecuted and the truth came out.''
Prosecutors estimated that Heidgen, of Valley Stream, had at least 14 drinks before getting behind the wheel; his blood-alcohol level, 0.28, was more than three times the legal limit in New York state, 0.08.
Prosecutors alleged he drove his pickup truck more than 2 miles north in the southbound lanes of the divided highway before ramming head-on into the limousine heading home from a family wedding in July 2005. They contended Heidgen never tried to stop and turned slightly toward the limousine in the seconds before the crash.
Katie Flynn and limousine driver Stanley Rabinowitz, 59, were killed. Five other members of the Flynn family were injured.
The jury also convicted Heidgen of assault and driving while intoxicated.
In closing arguments, Heidgen's defense attorney called the murder charge ``extreme'' and suggested jurors return a guilty verdict on a lesser count of criminally negligent homicide, which carries a four-year prison term.
Stephen LaMagna complained that prosecutors held Heidgen to the ``same standard as a cold-blooded murderer'' but insisted, ``this is a kid who drank too much and got lost on the way home.'' He said after the verdict that he intended to appeal and was confident the murder conviction would be overturned.
Prosecutors said Heidgen drove directly at the limousine and cited statements he made to investigators hours after the crash in which he said he was in ``self-destruct mode.'' LaMagna denied his client, who had recently moved to Long Island from Arkansas, was suicidal.
Several attendees at a party in Merrick, where Heidgen had been before the crash, said the defendant was laughing and dancing and showed no signs of being depressed.
A key piece of evidence for the prosecution was the brief video clip that captured the deadly crash from the limo camera.
Assistant District Attorney Maureen McCormick played the clip once during the trial and twice during her closing argument, and then jurors asked for it to be played for them four times more in succession while deliberating.
``This is the best piece of evidence, it doesn't rely on assumptions or speculation,'' McCormick said in her closing argument.
During the trial, Kate's mother, whose family had hired the limousine for an hour-long trip home from Bayville after the wedding, testified that moments after the crash she heard her 6-year-old daughter, Grace, crying, but ``I didn't hear Kate.''
Then she ``saw her head on the floor and there was hair over her face,'' she said. ``I moved her, and it was just her head that was there, and I never saw her body.''
She said she got out of the limousine and sat on a guardrail on the center median, clutching her daughter's remains as rescue workers helped the rest of the family: her mother, father, husband and other daughter.
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