Park manager denies role in fatal carnival ride
Charles Stan Martin, 56, took the stand on the fourth day of his trial on charges of second-degree murder in the March 2004 death of June Carol Alexander.
The 51-year-old Alexander plunged 60 feet to her death when her seat harness came loose on a rotating condola-like ride called The Hawk at Rockin’ Raceway in Pigeon Forge.
Prosecutors allege the ride’s safety system was bypassed to keep the ride in operation. The system was designed to shut down the ride if a harness wasn’t engaged.
“This jury needs to know … that I am deeply sorry for the Alexander family,” Martin told the panel of nine men and three women.
And he told them, “I am in no way guilty of the crimes of which I am charged.”
Martin said he had always worked “hard for people’s safety” and to be taken away in handcuffs and thrown in jail was “the cruelest slap in the face life has ever dealt me.”
Defense attorney Bryan Delius requested an acquittal after District Attorney General Al Schmutzer closed the prosecution’s case. Judge Richard Vance rejected the request, and the trial will resume Monday.
Delius argued that the prosecution had failed to provide any proof that Martin installed a black “jumper wire” found in the ride’s main control panel that bypassed the safety sensors.
“The only evidence that has been offered by the state at this point is that Stan Martin did maintenance on The Hawk,” Delius said, adding that Martin would “never knowingly kill anybody.”
Schmutzer countered that all the prosecution had to prove was “this man knew that that wire was there, and that he proceeded to allow this ride to run knowing the safety systems were compromised and allowed people to walk on it.”
Martin faces up to 25 years in prison, if convicted of second-degree murder.
“Did you kill Mrs. Alexander?” defense attorney Andy Roskind asked.
“Absolutely not,” Martin responded.
“Did you put that jumper wire in The Hawk?”
“Absolutely not.”
Martin testified he never saw the jumper wire, although he said he had worked on The Hawk’s main electrical cabinet frequently.
He also said he never completely read the ride’s maintenance manual, although the defense complained that the ride’s Italian manufacturer, Zamperla Inc., delivered the ride in 1998 without a manual.
Martin said the ride had problems since the beginning — crashing its movable platform together until welds broke, striking a platform railing, blowing fuses and lights when it rained and sounding off alarms.
However, Zamperla field manager Phil Castellano testified he was only called in to fix the platform and a motor coupling and hadn’t been back since 2000.
Schmutzer suggested Rockin’ Raceway stopped asking for service calls after the $475,000 ride’s warranty ran out.
Ken Mace of Muncie, Ind., testified that his harness came loose when he rode The Hawk in July 2003, and the ride continued to move. Screaming for help, Mace held on until the 17-year-old operator stopped the ride after it completed a full 360-degree rotation.
Mace testified he complained directly to Martin, but Martin and others said he was in West Tennessee that day at his father’s funeral.
Martin and assistant manager Joey Dickson looked over the ride two days after the Mace incident. They couldn’t find the problem, blamed the harness not locking on Mace’s girth, and put the ride back in operation.
Lead police investigator Rene Kendall said Martin denied knowing about the Mace incident when he first questioned Martin about the Alexander fatality.
John Lindsey, owner of the park and Martin’s brother-in-law, was one of several witnesses who testified that any major repairs on The Hawk, including anything electrical, “were all handled by Stan.”
Ticket booth worker Judy Chance recalled that she was in her booth in March 2004 talking with co-worker Mike Stepp when “Mike turned real pale and said ‘Somebody is falling from The Hawk.'”
Out of the corner her eye, Chance said she saw Alexander plunge from ride. “It felt like the ground shook beneath my feet,” Chance said of the emotional impact of the sight.