Trial begins in speeding death of Royal Palm Beach man

Source: Palm Beach Post

By LARRY KELLER | Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

WEST PALM BEACH — A 21-year-old Greeenacres man went on trial Tuesday for killing a passenger in his car while driving 90 miles per hour on State Road 441 north of Boynton Beach Boulevard.

Joshua Braswell is charged with vehicular homicide in the October 2006 death of his friend and passenger, Joseph Nannariello, 19, of Royal Palm Beach.

Braswell and young men in at least two other cars were driving south on 441 to meet at a designated spot in Boca Raton. By all accounts, the road was dark. Braswell accelerated past the others at “a gross, extreme rate of speed,” prosecutor Adam McMichael told jurors in his opening statement.

At the same time, the driver of a semi-truck transporting 30,000 pounds of okra was driving north on State Road 441. The trucker, Samuel Gervais, then made a U-turn in a lane designated for doing so. Braswell — driving 90 mph or 130 feet per second in a Honda CRX — rear-ended the truck, McMichael said. There was four feet of “crush damage” to Braswell’s car, he added.

Assistant Public Defender Shawnee Lawrence told jurors that the evidence will show that Gervais, not Braswell, “caused this very tragic accident.”

The first witness McMichael called was Henry Garza, 23, who was one of the men heading to the Boca Raton meeting spot. He said he saw Braswell zoom past the car in which he was a passenger. A short time later, they came upon the Honda smashed into the back of the semi-truck.

Garza said he couldn’t see Braswell, because the driver’s side of the Honda was under the truck. Nannariello, the passenger, “was lying on his back with his feet up on the dash.” He was unconscious. Gervais, the truck driver, was unhurt and called 911.

~ by ww on April 1, 2008.