3 days ago
Attorney for defendant in fatal OVI crash files motion to suppress blood evidence
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — The attorney for a man accused of driving drunk and causing a crash that killed a mother and her son has asked that blood evidence in the case be suppressed.
In a motion filed Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on behalf of Walter Bolt, 65, of Struthers, attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones said blood drawn from Bolt after the March 3 crash should be excluded from trial because it was not collected according to state law.
Cartwright-Jones also said the affidavit to get a warrant for the blood draw was not sufficient.
Bolt has been in the Mahoning County jail on $250,000 bond since his arrest after a grand jury indicted him on two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide, a second-degree felony; aggravated vehicular assault, a third-degree felony; and operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, a first-degree misdemeanor.
He is accused of driving drunk on March 3 and causing a head-on crash that killed Angela Brown, 44, and her son, Jason Daff, 15, at state Route 170 and Unity Road in Springfield Township.
Another son of Brown's was injured in the crash and is presently recovering.
Bolt pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment May 19. Court records list a July 9 pretrial hearing and July 14 trial before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum.
Troopers say his blood-alcohol content was .215, over the legal limit of 0.08. At a bond hearing last week before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, Assistant Prosecutor Steve Maszczak said troopers and police also found several beer cans scattered throughout Bolt's car in the wake of the crash.
In his motion Tuesday, however, Cartwright-Jones said the affidavit written by state troopers from the Canfield Barracks of the Ohio State Highway Patrol requesting a blood draw did not say if those beer cans were open and did not provide a link between the cans and their suspicions that Bolt was drunk.
Although accident reports said Bolt appeared confused after the crash, Cartwright-Jones wrote in his motion that it would be reasonable for someone to appear confused following a head-on collision.
'The warrant application relied heavily on the presence of beer cans and a generalized claim of impairment without confirming the condition of the containers or establishing a clear nexus between any alleged alcohol abuse and the crash,' Cartwright-Jones wrote.
Cartwright-Jones also wrote that the way Bolt's blood was drawn goes against state law because medical records fail to identify who took the blood when Bolt was being treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center or the qualifications of the person who drew the blood.
Also, the state has failed to provide a 'chain of custody' for how the blood got to the state crime lab, or a documented chain of people who had the blood from the time it was taken until the time it got to the lab.
'Really, no one can say how the blood got to the state lab, let alone who took it, let alone whether anyone took the sample in an Administrative Code-compliant way,' Cartwright-Jones wrote.
Prosecutors have yet to file a response.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
