Prosecutors called on their own medical expert to testify in the trial of a man accused of killing Alliston road worker, Geoff Gaston.
Dr. Brian Murray, a neurologist and the Crown’s only witness, said on Tuesday that Marcello Fracassi's alleged "parasomnia" on the night of the crash is highly unlikely.
Murray says the kind of depression and anxiety the defence described in Fracassi wouldn’t necessarily lead to the kind of deep-sleep actions, such as driving, described by the defence.
He said the same is true for the heavy drinking Fracassi has admitted to on the night in question.
"A little bit of alcohol could relax the airways enough to precipitate the arousals, but excessive alcohol would likely not do that."
Murray also testified that he didn't agree with two doctors called by the defence, who claimed Fracassi had numerous episodes of sleepwalking that night. He testified that to sleepwalk you need to be in a deep sleep also called N3 sleep.
He doubted that Fracassi could've entered that N3 phase in the minutes before Gaston was hit, which was only minutes after Fracassi's friend claimed Fracassi was awake and alert.
"Of the thousands of sleep studies I’ve reviewed, I’ve never seen anybody enter a deep N3 sleep within three minutes," he said.
Murray also said he found it strange that according to Dr. Colin Shapiro and Dr. Julian Gojer, Fracassi didn't have any "sleep walking" episodes while he was being tested for parasomnia.
The case returns to court on Thursday morning, when both the Crown and the defence will make their closing statements to the judge.
