A jury has found a Fremont man guilty of killing his friend three years ago when he lost control of his car after a night of drinking and crashed, ejecting his friend.
In addition to second-degree murder, Tyler Underwood, 34, was convicted of all other felony charges filed against him by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, including child abuse because his 4-year-old daughter was in the car at the time.
The jury issued its verdict on Nov. 23 in the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin following a roughly four-week trial.
During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Abigail Mulvihill painted Underwood as a man who consistently ignored risks, tried to shirk responsibility, and acted with “conscious disregard for human life,” part of the legal standard for a murder charge.
Deputy Public Defender Michael Wu implored the jury to instead view the crash and the death of his friend, Darren Walker, as a tragic accident. He argued the murder charge was too extreme.
“We’re deeply disappointed with the jury’s verdict,” Wu said in a statement to this news organization.
“At the end of the day, we all agree this was an accident. We should all question why, as a society, we can label that murder,” he said.
Wu said Underwood “would never put his daughter in a situation that he actually believed was dangerous.”
Underwood also was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol and of being over the legal blood alcohol content limit while causing injury to others on the night of the crash. He had five prior DUI-related convictions on his record.
He was also convicted of two misdemeanors including driving with a license suspended for past DUI charges, as well as two infractions, including one for speeding over 100 mph.
On Oct. 9, 2018, Underwood was driving his gray BMW sedan south on Interstate 680 with a woman in the passengers seat and his daughter and Walker in the backseat. They were headed to get food in Milpitas, along with two other friends of Underwood, who were in a silver Audi.
Underwood sped past his friend in the other car as they were racing when he lost control and rolled the BMW down an embankment about a mile north of Scott Creek Road in Fremont.
In late October 2018, Underwood claimed in a video posted to his Facebook account that his tire blew out, causing the crash. During the trial, Wu told the jury that a “surprise dip” in the road was the cause of the crash.
Walker was thrown from the car and died along the embankment, about 50 feet from where the BMW came to rest, authorities previously said. No one in either car mentioned Walker to the California Highway Patrol officers who responded to the crash that night but didn’t spot Walker’s body.
Wu told jurors none of them knew where Walker was and assumed he had left because he didn’t want to have contact with the police.
Because of his DUI-related convictions, prosecutors said Underwood asked the Audi’s passenger to lie to authorities and tell them he was driving Underwood’s car. The passenger complied, and the CHP did not find Walker’s body until the next day when his mother called and told them he was in the car with Underwood and had not returned home that night.
Underwood eventually told police he was driving the car and that he initially lied because he was scared he might lose custody of his daughter.
“When Tyler drove, was he consciously disregarding human life? No, of course not. Because the roads were empty, it was late, this part of the freeway was straight, the weather was clear, and he sped like this for a few seconds,” Wu told the jury.
“Tyler thought he was going to have a laugh, go get food, and go home with his baby,” Wu said.
Although Underwood admitted to drinking that night and speeding, Wu said those amounted to reckless mistakes.
He contended Underwood was not intoxicated and questioned the test methods used to determine his blood alcohol content, which authorities said was nearly twice the legal limit about 90 minutes after the crash.
“This is not murder. No one in the entire world is more important to Tyler than this little girl,” he said.
Mulvihill countered that Underwood knew the risks of driving under the influence of alcohol because of his prior convictions.
She asked the jury during her closing arguments to “see through all the smoke and mirrors” the defense was using to complicate a simple case.
“It doesn’t matter how much the defendant loved his daughter, it doesn’t matter how much he loved his friends,” Mulvihill said. “His actions on Oct. 9, 2018, did not show that,” she said.
“He drove under the influence. He knew that act was dangerous, because, gosh, he knows that better than anyone in this courtroom. And someone died. That’s murder,” Mulvihill said.
Teresa Gutierrez, the grandmother of Underwood’s daughter, said in an interview Wednesday she was happy about the verdict.
“I’m glad that he’s finally facing the music. Because he’s been sliding through for so long,” she said.
“I’m sure he didn’t want that for his friend,” she said, but Underwood bears the responsibility.
Gutierrez said she’s sad the child, who is now 7, likely will not have her father in her life.
“She’s doing cheerleading now, she’s going to do softball,” Gutierrez said, “and he’s going to miss out on everything in her life because of a stupid decision.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com