Jurors hear opening statements in 2020 crash that killed Gainesville teen

With the driver’s side door unusable, Shannon Beauford crawled over his 17-year-old passenger to exit the Toyota Corolla he wrecked on White Sulphur Road, according to the prosecution.

Beauford faces two counts of first-degree vehicular homicide and one count of second-degree child cruelty from the Oct. 4, 2020, wreck that killed Madison Nicole Gray, 17, of Gainesville.

A jury heard opening statements Tuesday, Jan. 10, in Beauford’s trial concerning the early morning single-vehicle wreck.

“His actions that early morning led to the senseless and tragic death of Madison Gray, actions that he needs to be held responsible for,” Hensley told the jury.

Hensley said Gray was heading home in the backseat of the car driven by Beauford. Authorities believe Beauford went off the road, striking a culvert and rotating.

“The defendant ended up turning around and crawled out through the backseat over Madison and exited through the back passenger door on the driver’s side,” Hensley said.

Gray’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the torso, causing internal bleeding and a laceration to her liver, the assistant district attorney said.

In her opening statement, defense attorney Janet SmithTaylor implored the jury to pay attention to the things that are and are not said by the witnesses. She and cocounsel Karen Pass have focused their attention on the investigative avenues not explored by law enforcement.

“They were judging a book by its cover, like a lot of people do,” Smith-Taylor said. “They didn’t fully investigate this.”

Smith-Taylor reiterated the fact that the onus of proof remains on the state to prove that Beauford was the driver.

Pass filed a motion in August to continue the case for time to have DNA samples tested.

Pass argued in the motion that two crucial pieces of evidence — blood and hair on the driver’s side windshield and hair on the driver’s side headrest — were not going to be tested.

“The identity of the person driving the vehicle is the central issue on the charges related to vehicular homicide,” Pass wrote. “The DNA evidence is critical to his defense of these charges.”