HONOLULU — A murder charge against a woman accused of deliberately driving off a cliff in Hawaii and killing her identical twin sister should be dismissed because prosecutors misled the grand jury that indicted her, a defense attorney said.
Authorities described the 2016 crash as a hair-pulling fight over the steering wheel. The sisters were seen arguing on the narrow, winding Hana Highway on the island of Maui before their SUV plunged 200 feet over a cliff.
Anastasia Duval was in the passenger seat and was killed, and her sister Alexandria Duval was arrested.
Birney Bervar, Alexandria Duval’s defense attorney, filed a motion last week seeking to dismiss the charge, and a hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
The defense motion says a witness to the crash did not testify before the grand jury, instead a detective took the stand to describe what that person saw. The witness had told police he saw the passenger pulling the driver’s hair with both hands and heard yelling.
The detective testified incorrectly that the witness said the passenger was no longer pulling the driver’s hair when they went over the edge, the defense said. The witness, who the defense interviewed, said the fighting and hair-pulling continued until he lost sight of the SUV as it drove past him and off the cliff, according to the motion.