An expert witness is placing the blame for a deadly fall from a golf cart on the woman who lost her life in the 2017 mishap in The Villages.
It was on the night of July 16, 2017, that 51-year-old Shelly Osterhout, of Fort Myers, met then-36-year-old Timothy Jacob Foxworth at City Fire at Brownwood. They left together in his parents’ golf cart from which she fell, suffering the fatal injury. Foxworth told police he “panicked,” dragged her body into a flower bed and drove away. She was discovered by Good Samaritans who called for an ambulance. She later died at Ocala Regional Medical Center.
Foxworth, a resident of North Carolina at the time of the incident, has been charged with DUI manslaughter leaving the scene of a crash. He remains free on bond.
Foxworth has retained attorney Andrew Moses, who has been meticulously retracing the events that transpired that tragic night.
An expert witness has concluded that Osterhout’s fatal injuries were not the fault of the man behind the wheel of the golf cart. Foxworth originally told police she fell out when he made an abrupt U-turn.
“The fall from the cart did not occur because of any dynamic movement of the cart,” Donald Fournier Jr., of Forensic Engineering Technologies, testified in a deposition in the case.
The engineer, a former senior vice president at Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc., has concluded the fall occurred “for some other reason,” according to the deposition.
“My conclusion is that the fall was not caused by the movement of the golf cart, but rather some action on the part of the passenger herself,” Fournier said in the deposition.
He provided a lengthy and detailed description of the examination and measurements of the crash site and the golf cart, down to the passenger arm rest, which pivots up and down. It included an examination of the autopsy and the fatal injury suffered by Osterhout.
“I will say that it is a fact that she fell out. For her to fall out requires her to either be leaning forward or standing up. Her primary fracture is to the back of her skull and she also has injuries to the back of her elbows,” Fournier said in the deposition.
Moses previously called for a dismissal in the case, due to a technicality.
