By his own admission, Timothy Bakdash was so drunk and high that he was "kind of in and out of reality" the night last spring when he drove onto a sidewalk and slammed into a group of University of Minnesota students walking home from Dinkytown bars.
But he was so certain of one thing that he repeated it like a mantra on the witness stand Friday: Benjamin Van Handel's death was an accident.
"I did not see him on that sidewalk. I did not try to hit him. I did not try to kill him," he told the court, taking the stand in his own defense on the fifth day of testimony in his first-degree murder and attempted-murder trial.
For more than two hours, Bakdash, 29, told the jury that he meant only to clip the ankle of a man he believed had taunted him in the parking lot as he left the Library Bar, where he claims he had about 20 mixed drinks. Instead, he said, he panicked when he saw a girl bounce off his windshield, shattering it, before he sped off. He testified that he was unaware that he struck two others, including Van Handel.
"At that moment, my heart just about dropped," he said under questioning by defense attorney Joseph Tamburino. "I was scared, I panicked, I freaked out."
Van Handel, 23, died five days later, hours before Bakdash was arrested. Students Sarah Bagley and Katelynn Hanson, both 21 at the time, were seriously injured. A.J. Epperson, whose ankle was struck, was not hurt.
During testimony, he said that his statements of "he deserved it" to friends and a co-worker after the April 15 crash were about Epperson, not Van Handel. He repeatedly called it a "stupid mistake" but said he was confused when he heard news that a man was in critical condition in the ensuing days, when he also signed over his damaged Mitsubishi Galant to a friend.
Bakdash testified that the man he clipped with his car, Epperson, was the same man who slapped him in the face after taunting him in the parking lot. Epperson testified earlier this week that he had never seen Bakdash before and was never in any sort of fight with him.
