Jury still deliberating in fatal DWI case

Jurors will begin their second week Tuesday morning deliberating whether a pregnant Miller Place woman was impaired by drugs and alcohol when her car hit another head-on in Ridge, killing a couple and the baby she was carrying.

During 41 1/2 hours over five days, jurors have tried to make sense of the case against Jennifer Jorgensen, 31. Twice, including once Monday, they have declared themselves deadlocked, only to have state Supreme Court Justice William Condon urge them to continue.

"There's been no real movement in where the 12 respective jurors see the case," said Monday's note from the jury. "We are at the same point we were at when deliberations began."

The case is more scientifically ambiguous than most, and lawyers for both sides acknowledge it could be difficult for jurors to decide whether Jorgensen was impaired. Authorities say Jorgensen, who was 8 months pregnant at the time, was impaired by a combination of alcohol and clonazepam, a prescription anti-anxiety medicine, as she drove on Whiskey Road.

She hit a car driven by Robert Kelly, 74, and Mary Kelly, 70, killing both. Her daughter was born by emergency Caesarean section and died soon afterward.

Jorgensen is charged with aggravated vehicular homicide of all three. She also faces three counts of second-degree manslaughter and a count of driving while impaired by a combination of alcohol and drugs. If convicted, she faces a maximum of 81/3 to 25 years in prison.

Jorgensen and her lawyers say authorities manipulated small blood samples to create the illusion of impairment. Suffolk Crime Lab officials added other blood to her sample to have enough to test, something not been done before, according to testimony. The initial toxicology result at the hospital for the blood test was positive for alcohol and the urine test was negative.

"It's insane," Jorgensen said Monday, adding there was no indication of a criminal probe until she was charged 13 months after the May 2008 crash.