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Widow describes fatal night during DUI-manslaughter trial
By CARY DAVIS, Times Staff Writer NEW PORT RICHEY -- The crash threw Ines Picinich 28 feet and knocked her unconscious. She awoke minutes later with emergency lights flashing above her. She looked around for her husband. What she saw was a single white tennis shoe. "Nino! Nino!" she screamed, calling out her husband's nickname. She stood up and limped toward the shoe. She felt two arms grab her waist, she testified Wednesday. A voice said, "It's too late." John Picinich, 69, already had been pronounced dead. He was killed, prosecutors say, when he was crushed against the back of his broken-down Ford Mustang by a pickup truck driven by Peter Patrick Claps. Claps, 35, is on trial this week in a New Port Richey courtroom, charged with driving under the influence-manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatal crash. The crash happened just before midnight on Easter 1999. Mrs. Picinich, now 71, and her husband were on their way back to their New Port Richey home after a night of playing cards with five other couples. On U.S. 19 in Hudson, near Oakley Avenue, they were involved in a minor accident. Their 1993 white Mustang was broadsided by a car trying to make a U-turn. The collision left the Mustang with a flat tire. Mrs. Picinich, who was driving, pulled over to the west shoulder of the roadway. Mr. Picinich went to the trunk. He handed his wife a tire jack. Mrs. Picinich took it, she testified Wednesday, and walked toward the flat left front tire. "All of a sudden," she said, "I heard a crash." The force of the impact threw Mrs. Picinich onto the pavement. She was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries and released. Claps' pickup, prosecutor Tom Stathopoulos said in his opening remarks Wednesday, was traveling 73 mph when it struck Mr. Picinich. The speed limit on that stretch of U.S. 19 is 45 mph. Claps' blood-alcohol level at the time, Stathopoulos said, was 0.286 percent, more than three times the legal limit. Florida law presumes impairment at a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent or higher. Authorities say Claps, who escaped serious injury, ran from the crash and hid behind a shed. A police dog eventually hunted him down. Defense attorney Robert Ford suggested in his opening remarks that Claps might not have been driving the pickup. At least one witness, Ford said, saw a second person running from the truck. Prosecutors say Claps was alone in the pickup. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper testified Wednesday that Claps admitted being the driver. The trooper, R.L. Paulk, also said that Claps had a circular bruise on his chest, indicating contact with the steering wheel. Mrs. Picinich, a native of Chile, was married to her late husband for 46 years. At the beginning of her testimony, Stathopoulos asked Mrs. Picinich to introduce herself to the jury. She paused, fighting back tears, and said, "I am a widow."
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