The trial of a driver who was a teen when his truck rolled off a cliff in Unalaska five years ago, killing two high-school girls, has again been delayed after police discovered additional records related to the case.
At a status hearing Friday, state prosecutor Patrick McKay Jr. with the District Attorney’s Office in Anchorage told the court that the Unalaska Police Department has new information related to the trial of Dustin Ruckman, now 23. Ruckman was set to be tried this month in the deaths of Karly McDonald and Kiara Haist.
The primary investigating officer on the case thought there were missing pages from her report, according to McKay.
“There was a document that had about 20 more pages or so on the report,” he told the court. “They were actually duplicative of other documents that had been separated from the actual report that was previously discovered.”
On top of that, McKay said the police department found a drawer of records, including things like disks, related to the case — most of which is just copies of material they already had. In light of the newly discovered information though, McKay asked the department to send over all of their material for the case. According to Unalaska City Manager Bil Homka, the city recently became aware of the material and is investigating the situation.
There is also some digital evidence from the FBI that hadn’t been included. McKay was unable to offer any further information on why that hadn’t been submitted earlier.
Altogether, he told the court there could be hundreds of gigabytes of information — some of which could be new — and has to be evaluated.
Police say Ruckman, who was a high-schooler at the time of the May 9, 2019 crash, drove his truck off Ulakta Head Cliff on Unalaska’s Mount Ballyhoo. He told investigators he was thrown from the truck. McDonald and Haist were in the vehicle when it fell nearly 900 feet down the cliff. Both girls died in the crash.
Ruckman is charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and reckless driving.
Jury selection for the trial was set to take place this week in Unalaska. But Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews, who is overseeing the case, said the court should have time to review the newly discovered information, and that may take a while.
McKay said most of the material from the local police department is repetitive and shouldn’t affect the case. It includes several documents, all of the body camera footage, new police reports and drone videos. Both sides will need to review all of the material before determining whether it includes anything new that could affect the case.
Defense lawyer Julia Moudy told the court that she likely won’t have time to be ready for a trial in Unalaska until next year because of the new evidence. She suggested moving the trial to Anchorage instead, where the court would have an easier time finding an impartial jury.
Matthews listened to testimony from parents of both of the girls who died. The families urged the judge to keep the trial local. Matthews ultimately denied the defense’s request to change the venue to Anchorage. Instead, he postponed jury selection this week and continued the trial.
There will be a status hearing Friday to discuss a new trial date. Matthews said he doesn’t want to delay it until next year, but that may be unavoidable.
