Dad affected by pain seeks justice while the trial for murder at the Boots Club is coming

Brian Phillips reproduces the last day he saw his 8 -year -old daughter, Alanah, and the 4 -year -old son, Zayn, before going to a birthday party at a Motro County boat club with his mother.

They had been at home that day in early April last year, and Phillips said he still feels an immense fault about whether they should have already left their older brother to go to the party.

But their children wanted to attend the party with their mother, Mariah Dodds, from whom he was separated. Hours later, Alanah and Zayn were killed after an alleged drunk driver crashed into the club where the party was held. The eldest son of Dodds and Phillips, Jayden, was injured.

“I felt that I should never have let them go. They should have stayed in my house,” Phillips said. “Seeing him develop before your eyes and not being there is overwhelming. It’s overwhelming for your heart.”

Now, The woman accused of driving drunk And causing that accident that killed Alanah and Zayn will be judged by two second -degree murder positions, two charges of operating under the influence of alcohol cause death and four charges of operation under the influence of alcohol that cause serious injuries.

The prosecutors said that Marshella Chidester, 67, the former commodore of the swan boat club that lived only meters from the club, It had a blood alcohol content of 0.18, More than double the legal limit, when it led by the side of the Boat Club in April 2024. In addition to killing Alanah and Zayn, Chidester is accused of hurting a dozen others.

Bill Colovos, a Chidester lawyer, has maintained that his client had a seizure while driving and does not remember the accident. Chidester told the Police that he had a seizure and passed out, and that he had a glass of wine that day, according to the images of the body of the body reproduced in the courtroom during the preliminary exam.

Phillips said his family has fought to advance after the death of Alanah and Zayn. He said he plans to attend the chidester trial and wants justice to be served and that the truth comes out.

He said he is tired of seeing the press say that Chidster “supposedly” was drunk when she committed the accident; He wants a jury to rule that he was drunk when she caused the accident and killed her children.

“I really hope you get what you deserve,” said Phillips. “I feel that in the justice system, all who make a crime, should possess it.”

Colosos said that his case for Chidester is based on the fact that an impartial jury is elected and how much he can put in the jury’s mind about the validity of blood alcohol content tests.

He also called the Chidester doctor, Dr. Ram Garg, hoping to admit that he allegedly has not told the State’s Office Secretary to medically suspend the driver’s driver’s license, among other things.

Devastated family after deaths

Sitting at home in Flat Rock, surrounded by photos of her children on a recent winter day before trial, Phillips is overcome by emotion. Hears a shirt that reads: “Forever Daddy’s Angels.”

Phillips said his 4 -year -old son, Zayn, was his little red -haired firecracker who was loving and sensitive and always laughing. He always wore a backpack full of his favorite toys, such as the Gomous and Elastic Jit Jit Zu action figures. Zayn loved being next to Sister Alanah and was excited about her next birthday, which ended up being three days after her funeral.

“Instead of planning his birthday party, we planned his funeral,” said Phillips. “I was full of life at 5 years. I was waiting for everything.”

Alanah was the girl of her little dad, who loved to see her dad play basketball and hoped to learn to play. He said she was an artistic girl who drew as much as she could: in her shoes, her clothes, her walls.

He also loved the Disney movie “Lilo and Stitch that Stitch appeared in his coffin. Alanah called him every night before bedtime and would fall asleep with him on the phone, said Phillips.

The eldest son of Phillips, who was 11 years old at the time of the accident, still fights to walk after breaking his femur and a bone at the bottom of the leg in the accident. He was critical after the accident and was transferred by plane to the hospital with a perforated lung, a head injury, a broken doll and broken leg bones.

The recovery has been hard, said Phillips, since his son was an active child before being injured.

“If you are at home and you’re drunk, there should be no reason for you to go,” said Phillips. “The moment she (Chidester) made a bad decision was when she left that house. He should have stayed at home.”

Chidester’s lawyer has argued that his client only had a glass of wine in a local restaurant and that the seizures made it faint and cause the accident. He has also argued that the blood alcohol content test found that the Chidester BAC was 0.18, more than twice from the Michigan limit of 0.08, was defective.

Jon Marko, the civil prosecutor who represents the mother of the children, Mariah Dodds, who was also injured in the accident and another 19 accident victims, said that Dodds has a lot of anxiety and pain for the continuous matters of the Court. The civil case has stopped until the criminal is resolved.

Marko said Dodds’s first words when he woke up at the hospital after the accident were: “Where are my children?” She has been devastated by her deaths.

“She expects justice, the best justice she can get,” Marko said. “She knows that nothing will bring what she lost, but she hopes to see justice and have (Chidester) responsible.”

‘I would not like to drive’

Chidester told the deputy of the Monroe County Sheriff’s office, Cody Carena, who did not remember what happened after she stopped in the parking lot of the boat club. She said she had seizures and that the last in March left her hospitalized for 10 days, but that her doctor had cleared her to drive.

Carena asked how poisoned he felt on a scale from scratch, Stone Cold Extrart, to be drunk in a 10. Chidster said he was in a “seven.”

“I wouldn’t like to drive, no,” he said.

Colosos has tried to obtain Police chidester statements After the accident and his blood alcohol content test, they had breakfast, but the Circuit Judge of the County of Monroe, Daniel White, denied both requests.

The defense lawyer also asked White to postpone the trial until the separate criminal procedures are resolved against a doctor who treated Chidester so that he could testify about his alleged serious negligence by allowing him to drive. Colosos also asked Move the trial to another county Due to the hostility of the Monroe community towards Chidester. White also denied both requests.

Defense case

Collovos expects choosing a jury to be more difficult than usual because many people know the accident and may have opinions about the case.

“You are going to have some people who have already invented their attitudes (in the case),” said Colosos. “That is the terrifying part, trying to overcome that and obtain a fair proof. It is very, very difficult.”

Collovos asked White Do not allow prosecutors to admit chid blood alcohol content tests, As he argued, the blood was not properly preserved and that could have led to the fermentation made by the blood analysis in a cod much higher than the chidester really. White denied his request, but Collovos said he would be mentioning the problem in the trial if the prosecutors do not feel the right basis of how the blood was preserved.

Colosos said that Garg, who was a Chidester doctor for his neurological problems, is on his witness list and was summoned. Garg faces 35 serious crimes in Wayne County for allegedly carrying out a criminal company and a health fraud, and Collovos said that Garg wants to testify how he was supposedly very negligent in his chid care.

White denied the application for postponing Chidester’s trial until after Garg’s criminal trial. Colosos said that Garg can affirm his right of the fifth amendment to avoid self -including or not appear in the Chidester trial.

Collovos said that Garg did not tell the Secretary of the State Office that the chidester license should be suspended for medical reasons, and that he told Chidester that it would be good to drive again six months after his initial seizure, not six months after any seizure he had.

“If the Secretary of State had said ‘he is suspended pending a medical evaluation or approval,” he would have complied with her, “said Collovos. “She would not have driven. The law continues.”

As the test progresses, Phillips is still working to collect the pieces of his life after facing the unimaginable. He said it has been “very, very painful since it happened.”

“Make them have been a dagger in my heart,” said Phillips.

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