Handheld 3D Scanning Data Supports Conviction in Criminally Negligent Homicide Case ​

On February 27, 2020, Shaypher Lee M. Hendricks was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, driving under the influence and reckless driving in connection with a single-vehicle crash on July 12th, 2016, on Highway 18, near Milepost 3.5, north of Lincoln City, Oregon. Passenger Austin M. Mayhak (27) was found deceased in the front passenger seat of the 2016 GMC 2500 Savana cargo van. Highway 18 was closed for approximately 8 hours to clear the scene.

Figure 1 -- Evidence Yard (Image courtesy Oregon State Police)​

Billy Bush, a District Lead Reconstructionist for Oregon State Police’s Collision Reconstruction Unit testified at Hendricks’s trial following his investigation. The defense claimed he was the passenger in the vehicle, not the driver, and therefore was not responsible for the crash or the loss of Mayhak’s life. Three years after the incident, Bush, an ACTAR accredited Reconstructionist, reopened the investigation when the defense successfully moved to exclude the admission of expert testimony from a non-accredited CRU member who had led the investigation in 2016.
 
Following Bush’s investigation, the core of the prosecution’s case was showing the vehicle dynamics, occupant kinematics, and Principle Direction of Force excluded the possibility of the passenger surviving the crash. Consequently, the survivor was ultimately determined to be the driver.
 
Bush obtained a search warrant for the vehicle, which was kept as evidence and used a DT Research DT301X-TR tablet equipped with an Intel RealSense D415 sensor and Hemisphere GNNS sensor and running DotProduct’s Dot3D Pro software to produce a 3D point cloud of the wrecked vehicle. First, four AprilTags were positioned around the vehicle and their centers were surveyed with centimeter grade accuracy using the Hemisphere dual-frequency GNSS sensor onboard the tablet running Leica Evidence Recorder software. The AprilTag coordinates were then imported to DotProduct Dot3D Pro for post-processing of the point clouds collected with Dot3D Pro using the RealSense D415 sensor. According to Bush, it would have been impossible to use a tripod laser scanner effectively for the data collection because of the proximity of nearby vehicles and obstacles in the evidence yard. Storage space is at a premium and vehicles are stacked close together.

Figure 2 -- Dot3D Point Cloud Data Captured with Intel RealSense D415 Camera (Courtesy Oregon State Police)​

The crash reconstruction showed that the vehicle had hit a tree on the passenger side and that the tree had ripped off the passenger-side A-pillar and roof. It was also determined that the cargo partition behind the passenger had been displaced to the rear and the passenger had been caught in the path. At the trial, Bush used the Dot3D Pro software to show the jury the force lines and vehicle crush navigating in real-time to multiple points of view, including perspectives from the front of the vehicle looking back, the side of the vehicle looking in and the top of the vehicle looking down. Bush measured the deformation caused by a tree impacting the front of the vehicle matching this to the tree diameter and damage orientation. Using the point cloud data and after extensive cross-examination, Bush established for the jury that beyond a reasonable doubt, the passenger had perished in the crash.

Herein lies the power of point clouds for crash reconstruction. The reconstructionist can bring the vehicle to the jury and show it from any point of view. Often it is not practical to take the jury to the crash scene or the evidence yard and even more challenging to show jurors the evidence from the same point of view. Photographs and video presentations are necessarily limited to the point of view of the camera at the time the images are collected. Viewing the data from the top of the vehicle, for example, would not be possible with photographs unless the scene photographer had thought to photograph from that vantage point. The interpretation of point clouds can be restricted to real-world measurements, unlike animations. In this trial, while the judge excluded IIHS videos showing exemplar crashes, he admitted the Dot3D vehicle point cloud after defense objections were met with responses further establishing its scientific foundation.

Of course, the defense also has to have access to the data without the burden of having to purchase expensive proprietary software. Standard operating procedure for the Oregon State Police is to provide industry-standard outputs including PTS, LAS, LAZ and E57 files, all of which can be exported directly from Dot3D. OSP also provided the defense the DotProduct binary .dp file and link to the company’s free viewer. According to Bush, this standard operating procedure more than satisfies discovery requirements.

More Information
More information about the incident can be obtained for a modest fee from the Oregon State Police Central Records Section citing OSP Case# SPI6 224289.

The crash reconstruction showed that the vehicle had hit a tree on the passenger side and that the tree had ripped off the passenger-side A-pillar and roof. It was also determined that the cargo partition behind the passenger had been displaced to the rear and the passenger had been caught in the path. At the trial, Bush used the Dot3D Pro software to show the jury the force lines and vehicle crush navigating in real-time to multiple points of view, including perspectives from the front of the vehicle looking back, the side of the vehicle looking in and the top of the vehicle looking down. Bush measured the deformation caused by a tree impacting the front of the vehicle matching this to the tree diameter and damage orientation. Using the point cloud data and after extensive cross-examination, Bush established for the jury that beyond a reasonable doubt, the passenger had perished in the crash.

Herein lies the power of point clouds for crash reconstruction. The reconstructionist can bring the vehicle to the jury and show it from any point of view. Often it is not practical to take the jury to the crash scene or the evidence yard and even more challenging to show jurors the evidence from the same point of view. Photographs and video presentations are necessarily limited to the point of view of the camera at the time the images are collected. Viewing the data from the top of the vehicle, for example, would not be possible with photographs unless the scene photographer had thought to photograph from that vantage point. The interpretation of point clouds can be restricted to real-world measurements, unlike animations. In this trial, while the judge excluded IIHS videos showing exemplar crashes, he admitted the Dot3D vehicle point cloud after defense objections were met with responses further establishing its scientific foundation.

Of course, the defense also has to have access to the data without the burden of having to purchase expensive proprietary software. Standard operating procedure for the Oregon State Police is to provide industry-standard outputs including PTS, LAS, LAZ and E57 files, all of which can be exported directly from Dot3D. OSP also provided the defense the DotProduct binary .dp file and link to the company’s free viewer. According to Bush, this standard operating procedure more than satisfies discovery requirements.

More Information
More information about the incident can be obtained for a modest fee from the Oregon State Police Central Records Section citing OSP Case# SPI6 224289.