Deer Park murder trial: 'It was like Armageddon hit'

Michael Mehale was seated at the front windows of Hawaii Nail & Spa in Deer Park until 4:27 p.m. on June 28, 2024, video evidence played in a Riverhead courtroom showed Friday.

Four minutes later, a gray SUV crashed through that window seat, striking people who had been seated next to the Deer Park resident and obliterating the storefront.

“All of a sudden it was like Armageddon hit,” Mehale testified at the depraved-indifference murder trial of Steven Schwally, the alleged driver of the vehicle. “There was nothing left [of the storefront].”

Suffolk County prosecutors have said Schwally, 66, was intoxicated when he crossed the street from a neighboring parking lot and crashed his 2020 Chevrolet Traverse into the salon at 78 mph. He is charged with four counts of second-degree murder, manslaughter and aggravated vehicular homicide in the deaths of Salon employees Yan Xu, 41, and Mei Zi Zhang, 50, both residents of Flushing, Queens; salon owner Jian Chai Chen, 37, of Bayside, Queens; and off-duty NYPD Officer Emilia Rennhack, 30, of Deer Park.

Schwally also faces assault charges for injuries to other occupants of the salon, including Mehale, a regular customer who was receiving a pedicure near the back of the store at the moment of impact. Schwally has pleaded not guilty to the charges. 

Mehale, 60, told the jury seated before State Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro in Riverhead that he spent the four weeks following the crash at Stony Brook University Hospital and a rehabilitation facility in Port Jefferson. He suffered a broken femur and fractured hip socket on his right leg, a labrum tear to his right shoulder and a non-displaced fracture of a left toe.

Surgeons placed a rod in his right leg, Mehale told the jurors.

“It was pretty intense pain,” he said of how he felt in the immediate aftermath. “I’ve never had anything like that before.”

Mehale testified that his injuries caused him to retire from his airport job. He had to spend time after his release from the hospital living with his mother and younger brother to receive the additional support he needed to navigate daily life. He used a walker and cane in the first months after the crash and continues his physical rehabilitation today.

“I’m just trying to get back to the quality of life I had before,” Mehale testified under direct examination from Assistant District Attorney Alexander Bopp, who is trying the case with Vehicular Crimes Bureau Chief Carl Borelli.

Mehale said Schwally’s Chevy Traverse moved so quickly through the salon it had come to a stop at the back of the building before he could even turn his head to look. Police officers who responded to the crash scene within minutes attempted to help Mehale to his feet, but he couldn’t stand or walk, he testified.

Laying on the ground, and eventually a stretcher, he took in the carnage.

“It was total destruction in there,” Mehale said, calling the salon a "war zone."

“The ceiling tiles were gone, the electrical was hanging," he said. 

Mehale saw Chen lying on the ground within five feet of him.

“He looked unconscious to me,” Mehale told the jury. “He was on the ground, not moving.”

Defense attorney Christopher Cassar, of Huntington, asked Mehale how he was injured. When he testified that he didn’t know exactly how, Cassar pointed to a civil claim the witness had filed against his client that claimed he was hurt by "furniture and debris."

“So you do know how you got hurt?” the defense attorney shot back.

“And what hit the furniture and debris?” Bopp asked in his only question during redirect.

“The vehicle,” Mehale said.

Bopp also called into question a defense theory that a leg injury caused Schwally’s right leg to “lock up” while driving, preventing him from releasing the gas pedal. He asked Mehale if since he suffered his own serious injuries had his leg ever “locked up” while driving.

“No,” he said.

Prosecutors contend Schwally drank multiple bottles of a Long Island Iced Tea cocktail he purchased at a neighboring liquor store in the hours leading up to the crash.

Joseph Sheehan, an employee of the Deer Park Fire District and volunteer firefighter, told the jury he did not hear Schwally tell emergency personnel that an issue with his leg caused the crash.

Asked to describe the scene, Sheehan, who testified that he has responded to hundreds of motor vehicle incidents, responded with just three words.

“Chaos and tragic,” he said.

The trial  is due to continue with additional witness testimony Monday.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.