Texting-and-driving trial: Victim's head hit the ground 'like a basketball'

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That was the question posed via text message to Alexandra Mansonet about her dinner plans on Sept. 28, 2016, an assistant prosecutor told a jury Wednesday.

Mansonet typed two letters, M and E, into her phone but never finished her text or sent it, Christopher Decker, assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, told the jury. She was interrupted when her Mercedes Benz crashed into a car that had slowed to a stop in front of her at a crosswalk in Hazlet to let a pedestrian cross, Decker said.

Joseph Matich of Keansburg, a passenger in his father's Toyota, told the jury Mansonet's Mercedes struck the rear of their car and pushed it into the pedestrian, whose face struck their windshield. He described for the jury what happened next.

"Her face smashed off the windshield, cracked the windshield of the vehicle,  and then her head smashed the ground, I would say two to three times, like a basketball," Matich testified.

The pedestrian was Yuwen Wang, a 39-year-old Hazlet woman who had decided to go for a walk while on her break from International Flavors and Fragrances, a nearby fragrance factory in Hazlet, Decker told the jury. She died five days later at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center in New Brunswick.

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Mansonet, 50, of Keansburg is on trial for vehicular homicide in what is believed to be the first such trial in New Jersey involving allegations of texting while driving.

"Alexandra Mansonet wasn't drunk," Decker told the jury in his opening statement. "She wasn't high. She wasn't speeding. This is not your typical vehicular homicide."

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He suggested the jurors might be "thinking something along the lines, 'Wow, this could happen to me.'"

Making reference to the phrase, "There but for the grace of God go I," Decker asked the jurors not to let sympathy affect their decision in the case. 

"The law is the law," Decker said. 

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A 2012 law makes using a hand-held telephone while driving an act of recklessness that can form the basis for a vehicular homicide prosecution.

Decker said Mansonet never saw the car stopped in front of her because she was looking at her phone.

"It would have been no different if she had a blindfold on," the assistant prosecutor said.

"The pressing question that brought us here is what her and her friend were going to eat that night," Decker said of the defendant. 

"Her attempt to answer that question led to the death of a 39-year-old woman crossing the street,'' the assistant prosecutor said. 

Defense attorney Steven D. Altman argued that the accident occurred at least 60 seconds after Mansonet received the text message about dinner plans. 

"She could have been a half mile away, perhaps three-quarters of a mile," Altman said. "She's going to tell you she wasn't texting."

Altman said Mansonet was trying to adjust her rear defogger.

The defense attorney told the jury they will see a video showing Mansonet's car traveling in a straight path prior to the accident, which occurred about 8:20 a.m. on Laurel Avenue, near Sixth Street. 

"If someone's texting, how would you expect that car to be driving so straight as it passes a school bus a block or two before the accident?" Altman asked. 

One of the state's first witnesses, Hazlet police Sgt. Nicholas Greene, testified that Manosnet told him, "I have nothing to hide," when she voluntarily turned over her phone to police.

Another officer, Hazlet Patrolman Patrick Kiley, testified about what he encountered at the scene of the accident.

He said Wang was unresponsive when he got there.

"She was laying on the ground, bleeding from the ears, back of the head, mouth and eyes," Kiley testified.

Wang was "breathing but kind of just staring straight ahead," Kiley said.

The victim had no identification on her, but she had car keys on an electronic key fob, Kiley testified. So, the officer followed a nearby foot path that led to the fragrance factory and, activating the panic button on the victim's car key, he located her car in the parking lot, he said. Inside the car were her driver's license, work identification and cellphone, he said.

Kiley went inside the fragrance factory in an attempt to find an emergency contact for Wang, but her employer didn't have one, he said. So, he called a contact in her phone with whom she shared frequent calls and text messages, and it turned out to be her husband, Steven, Kiley said. The officer asked Steven Wang to meet him at Robert Wood Johnson, he said. 

Once there, "the nurse just said at that time that her condition was extremely critical and she may not make it through the night," Kiley testified. ​​​​​​ 

The victim's husband sat silently in the back of the courtroom during the testimony.

The state's first witness was Robert Matich, Joseph Matich's father, who was driving the Toyota that was struck by Mansonet's Mercedes and propelled into the pedestrian.

Robert Matich, a retired trucker with a commercial driver's license, testified he had coasted to a complete stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk — the victim who had already entered the crosswalk, and a woman with a baby carriage who was about to.

"Then, I got slammed in the rear end," Robert Matich said. "Glass went flying."

Some of the glass went down his son's back, the witness said.

Cross-examined by Altman, Robert Matich testified he didn't hear brakes screeching before the impact. Altman confronted him with a statement he gave to police after the accident in which he said he had heard brakes screeching.

"Remember, this is three years ago," the witness responded. "I'm getting senile now. That's why I gave up my trucking."

Mansonet is on trial before Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman.

Kathleen Hopkins, a reporter in New Jersey since 1985, covers crime, court cases, legal issues, unsolved mysteries and just about every major murder trial to hit Monmouth and Ocean counties. Contact her at khopkins@app.com; 732-643-4202.