EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — The preliminary hearing for a man accused of driving while high on methamphetamines and killing two Eagle Mountain 3-year-old children continued Friday.
Hunter Jackson and Odin Ratliff were playing in a corral when a car driven by Kent Cody Barlow crashed through a fence, killing the two toddlers in May 2022.
Barlow appeared online from jail and was not physically at the Fourth District Courthouse.
After three days of listening to witnesses and experts brought in by state prosecutors, Friday was the defense's turn to examine the evidence before the judge.
"It didn't really change anything that we didn't already know," said Hunter's mother, Brooke Jackson.
Defense attorneys called in a crash reconstruction expert, a crime scene analyst, and the state's former medical examiner to stress their point: that the structure collapse killed Hunter Jackson and Odin Ratliff, not the direct impact of the car Barlow was driving that day.
"To say that the children were hit by the vehicle in the corral and then wound up where they were found with the pattern of injuries documented, that is not impossible but would be as likely as having an extraterrestrial walk through that door dancing the Macarena," said former Utah Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey.
State prosecutors made sure to ask and confirm what caused the corral to cave in in the first place.
"The overall cause of death? A car that drove through the property," answered crime scene analyst Jennifer Peterson.
To Jackson, the intricacies of what exactly hit her son doesn't matter.
"Hunter and Odin are only dead because of the choices Kent Barlow made," she said.
The speed, design, and curves of the Eagle Mountain road Barlow was driving on was also discussed. Crash reconstruction expert Michael Anderson said Barlow had no way of knowing the boys were there.
"I think the evidence shows that he was probably not able to see anything in the stable area," Anderson said.
Some of the details can be pretty graphic for the parents to hear.
"Some days really suck," said Jackson. "As much as it sucks that we don't have Odin or Hunter, we still have the other parents. We're each other's support team for a lot of it. Nobody else will understand it the same way we do."
Next, prosecutors and defense attorneys will submit memorandums. The next court meeting is set for May 17 at 1 p.m.
