Blizzard’s trial on charges of negligent homicide begins today. Jurors will be taken to a public safety garage to view the damaged boat.
The parents of Stephanie Beaudoin, 34, who was killed in the crash, say they will not be there.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s completely done,’’ said her father, Edgar Beaudoin. “Our daughter’s gone and nothing will ever bring her back. She was our youngest. They can’t say anything that will satisfy us. It was negligence to the point of no return.’’
Blizzard, 36, of Lakeport, has undergone numerous reconstructive surgeries due to severe injuries to her face, the most recent one in January. Nicole Shinopulos of Burlington, Mass., the other passenger, suffered a broken jaw. The three were heading through rain and fog to Shinopulos’s vacation home on Sleeper Island when the accident happened. Police said they found three empty beer cans bobbing amid the boat’s wreckage.
Blizzard’s lawyer maintains she was not impaired or driving recklessly.
The trial is expected to fuel legislative debate over whether to extend a pilot program setting speed limits on Lake Winnipesaukee. Those speed limits - 45 miles per hour during the day and 25 miles per hour at night - are scheduled to expire Dec. 31. Lake Winnipesaukee is the state’s largest lake and the only one subject to speed limits.
Shinopulos told investigators the three had a leisurely dinner and two cocktails each at Wolftrap Tavern on the lake from about 8 to 11 p.m., when they left for Paul Blizzard’s house to play an annual Father’s Day prank. They had littered Paul Blizzard’s yard with campaign signs with his picture superimposed on them. Shinopulos told investigators that Blizzard did not appear intoxicated. “There was nothing that would have made me think she was impaired at all,’’ Shinopulos said, according to a court document.
