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Apr 22, 2008 5:54 pm US/Central
DNA Tests On Air Bags In Fatal School Bus Crash
MARSHALL, Minn. (WCCO) ―
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On Tuesday, Lyon County District Judge David Peterson denied a defense motion to reduce the bail amount in the case of 24-year-old Olga Marina Franco del Cid. (File)
Lyon County
The air bags from the van a woman is accused of crashing into a school bus killing four children will be tested for DNA to help establish who was driving.
Olga Franco, 24, appeared in court in Marshall, Minn. on Tuesday for a hearing to determine if Franco's statements to investigators should be thrown out, and at the same time revealed new information about the case.
Police say Franco was driving the van on Feb. 19 that hit a school bus in Cottonwood back in February. She is charged with criminal vehicular homicide after four students from the Lakeview School District who were on the bus were killed.
Franco claims her boyfriend was behind the wheel when the van ran a stop sign and hit the bus, but he took off before police arrived. During the hearing, her defense attorney was highly critical of investigators. He said they didn't read Franco her Miranda rights prior to one interview and they didn't collect enough evidence to show who was driving the van.
"The defense will be that she was not driving the van, and it gets down to that. And it's really not a difficult case," said Franco's attorney Manuel Guerrero. Guerrero said two days after the crash, Franco told authorities her boyfriend was driving but they never investigated it.
"I'm convinced that the boyfriend was in fact driving the van, and that he has absconded and can't be found," he said.
Franco will testify her boyfriend was thrown from the vehicle on impact and then he ran off. Immigration officials say the boyfriend is in the U.S. illegally. They searched for him in Willmar, in Texas and it's now believed he's in Mexico.
Minnesota State Patrol Officer Dana Larsen testified at a hearing on Tuesday that Franco was in the driver's seat when she was extracted from the vehicle after the crash. She broke her leg and firefighters had to extricate her.
However, Guerrero says there's an explanation: that in the crash, Franco was thrown to the driver's side.
"Since she didn't have any seatbelts and he didn't have any seatbelts on, that she was thrown over in that direction, and then she righted herself by grabbing the steering wheel and pulling herself up," he said. He also said Franco is suffering from depression.
"She deeply regrets that there was injury to other people, and she's expressed that sorrow to me. But she's also maintained that she wasn't driving the van," said Guerrero.
The $200,000 bail for Franco will stand, even thought her attorney argued that another judge did not consider all the facts in the case when he set the bail amount.
Lyon County Attorney Rick Maes countered that Franco had lied during the investigation, and is considered a flight risk.
Lyon County District Judge David Peterson denied the defense motion to reduce the bail amount and did not make a decision on throwing out Franco's statements to investigators.
Franco initially gave authorities an assumed name, but investigators figured it out and learned Franco was in the country illegally.
In court on Tuesday, it was also revealed that a 5-year-old boy saw a woman driving the van prior to the crash, but the child wasn't in court.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will receive the air bags on Wednesday to do the DNA testing.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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