AUBURN — On the first day of a trial for a Windham man charged with manslaughter, the prosecution and defense offered competing versions of a 2022 crash in Turner that claimed the life of a Fayette woman.

Curtis Fogg of Windham appears Monday in Androscoggin County Superior Court in Auburn on the first day of his manslaughter trial. He is charged in the December 2002 crash that killed 79-year-old Carol Ivers of Fayette on Route 4 in Turner. Christopher Williams/Sun Journal

Curtis Randy Fogg, 35, also faces four other felony other charges stemming from the crash.

A jury of 10 men and four women in Androscoggin County Superior Court heard Monday, first from Assistant District Attorney Patricia Mador, who said Fogg had been chasing another vehicle that had passed him at a high rate of speed on the morning of Dec. 11, 2022, as he drove north on Route 4.

Fogg, who was driving a Dodge pickup truck, told police later that he was “pissed off” at the other driver and had sped up to record the license plate number of the offending pickup truck, Mador told the jury.

He told police he was driving 85-90 mph in an effort to catch up with the other truck, Mador said.

She said witnesses would testify that the two trucks were zooming up Route 4, both traveling in the center turning lane at roughly 100 mph.

“One was right behind the other,” one of the witnesses will testify, Madore said.

That witness came upon the crash scene shortly afterward on Route 4 and saw what would later be identified as a Chevrolet pickup truck down in a ditch on the side of the road, she said.

Parked at a business nearby was the Dodge truck, she said.

One of the witnesses will testify that the two trucks had forced eight to 10 vehicles off the road, Mador said.

Another witness will say that the two trucks remained in the center turning lane until the crash, she said.

The crash victim, 79-year-old Carol Ivers, had been entering Route 4 southbound toward Auburn from the northbound side of the road when her car was struck head-on by the Chevrolet truck that was driven by Jacob Diaz of Augusta.

Diaz was 24 years old in December 2023 when he was sentenced in a plea agreement to serve five years and six months of a 17-year sentence for manslaughter in connection with the crash.

An analysis of the truck Diaz was driving revealed that he had been traveling at roughly 110 mph at the time of impact.

The force of the collision pushed Ivers’ sedan 200 feet backward, Mador said.

Ivers was pronounced dead at the scene from her injuries, Mador said.

Fogg was parked nearby for about eight minutes before leaving the scene of the crash, Mador said. He never called police nor identified himself to law enforcement officers, she said, so they had to track him down later.

Although it wasn’t the truck Fogg was driving that struck Ivers’ car, Mador explained that Fogg was charged under something called accomplice liability.

“Accomplice liability essentially says that you can be responsible for the conduct of another person in certain circumstances,” Mador said. “And in this instance, the state will produce evidence to show you that there was what is called a ‘primary crime,’ that primary crime being the driving behavior of these two pickup trucks on Route 4 on this Sunday morning.”

She said Fogg was responsible for “any crime that is a foreseeable consequence of the conduct involved in that primary crime,” a consequence such as the crash and death of Ivers.

“That’s what happened here,” she said.

Defense attorney Henry Griffin told the jurors that what Mador described in her opening statement isn’t evidence and “is not, from our perspective, at all what happened” on the morning of Dec. 11, 2022.

He conceded that Fogg shouldn’t have been driving that morning, his license having been revoked.

Griffin said Fogg will testify that he was driving — in the travel lane — to his son’s wrestling match.

Griffin said the issue to which the jury must pay attention is the actual cause of Ivers’ death.

He told jurors to pay attention to distances, time and speed, as they’re referenced by witnesses.

Fogg will testify that he was angry with the driver of the other truck because “he was creating a danger,” Griffin said.

He told jurors Fogg had thought that he would get the license plate number of the truck and report it to the police. Before the crash, he had pulled his truck back into the travel lane. After the crash, he had pulled over and “jumps out of his pickup truck and he runs over to Mrs. Ivers’ car” and held her hand.

Although Fogg stayed at the scene for nearly 20 minutes, no one approached him to talk to him, Griffin said.

If Fogg were driving to his son’s wrestling match, Griffin asked, why would he get into a race with the other truck?

“It makes no sense,” he said, noting the two drivers didn’t know each other.

Griffin read to the jury that accomplice liability is when someone “voluntarily aids another person in committing a crime.”

He said Diaz “is the guy who actually caused the death” of Ivers.

The trial is scheduled to last up to four days.

The crime of manslaughter is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Fogg also was indicted on a charge of causing death while license suspended or revoked, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He is facing charges of aggravated operating after habitual offender revocation, reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon and leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily injury or death, each crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

A charge of criminal speed is a misdemeanor.