A Milwaukee County jury is now pondering testimony and evidence in the trial of Amandria Brunner.
Brunner, 42, faces six felonies, including two counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle, in the Sept. 5, 2025, crash that ended the lives of Scott Michaud, 19, and Noah Snyder, 20.
The panel began deliberating at 3 p.m.
In her closing statement, Assistant District Attorney Emily Zimmel replayed footage of the crash and read quotes from Brunner caught on police bodycams, during which she said she shouldn’t have made the turn.
“We know that she has regrets about what she did,” Zimmel said.
Zimmel repeated a witness’ testimony that he saw the crash before it happened and said that even her 5-year-old would instruct a driver not to proceed when safely stopped at a yellow light.
The other driver in the case, Peter McColgan, 22, also was charged in the case, about eight months after Brunner’s arrest.
Zimmel encouraged jurors to separate Brunner’s driving from McColgan’s, asserting that their job was to make a ruling on Brunner and to save McColgan’s case for another jury.
“She chose to drive into the path of that oncoming vehicle. She chose to do that because she’s drunk and she’s high and she doesn’t have the decision-making and motor skills necessary to operate a motor vehicle,” Zimmel said.
Defense attorney Abigail Ruckdashel told jurors Brunner shouldn’t be held responsible for Michaud and Snyder’s deaths.
The blame should be placed on McColgan’s decision to speed that day, she said.
“You don’t expect a car coming at you double the speed limit,” she said.
Ruckdashel told the jury to not let their empathy for the victims’ families cloud the facts as they weighed the evidence.
This is a developing story. Stay with jsonline.com for updates.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jury gets case in crash that killed Marquette lacrosse players
Reporting by Chris Ramirez and Lance Schulteis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Chris Ramirez and Lance Schulteis, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
