An attorney for the widow of former Brazos Canyon Fire Chief Michael Hays suspects evidence may have been removed from the scene of the February 2008 fire station explosion that killed Hays.
Santa Fe attorney Patrick Casey said he is demanding Rio Arriba County and the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative disclose private investigators’ reports on the Feb. 19, 2008, Brazos Fire Station explosion.
“I asked quite some time ago for the reports,” Casey said Tuesday. “Now the judge has to decide whether to compel (their disclosure).”
Casey filed a motion with state District Court Judge James Hall April 24 to compel disclosure of the Kit Carson investigator’s report, Casey said. Casey had filed an earlier motion April 14 to compel the County to share its fire investigators’ report as well, according to Casey and an online court records database.
Michael Hays, 64, was killed in an explosion that destroyed the uninsured Brazos Canyon Volunteer Fire Department station. Hays had been retired for just three days when he visited the station the day of the explosion.
Construction of a new fire station, scheduled for completion in December 2008, is only now nearing completion.
Casey and attorney Patrick Broom, based in Tuscon, Ariz., filed a wrongful death lawsuit Dec. 30, 2008, against the County Commission and Kit Carson Propane, a division of Electric Cooperative, on behalf of Hays’s widow Ramona Hays and her daughters, Lara Hays and Heather Hays-King, according to court documents. The lawsuit seeks undisclosed damages for pain and suffering following Michael Hays’s death, according to the complaint.
Casey said he believes a Kit Carson investigator may have removed evidence from the scene of the fire station explosion before the state Fire Marshal’s investigation was complete.
“Things were thrown away right after the explosion,” Casey said Tuesday. “We don’t have the water heater or boiler and I don’t know where the hell that went. We heard from Beasley that Kit Carson’s investigator was on scene.” Casey was referrng to the County’s Belen-based forensic investigator Brian Beasley.
But Co-op attorney Gregory Pelton rejected Casey’s suggestion that evidence may have been removed from the scene.
“That allegation is not correct,” Pelton said Tuesday. “I don’t think he removed anything.”
But Pelton then added that a valve on the tank may have been removed by the Co-op investigator.
“The only thing there that was (Co-op) property was our (gas) tank and the metering equipment attached to the tank,” Pelton said. “The tank may have ultimately been removed. It was there when the state fire marshal investigator was there. The primary valve that sits where the gas comes out of the tank, I’m not sure whether our investigator took that or looked at it and left it there.”
However, taking the valve would’ve been within the Co-op’s rights because it was Co-op property, Pelton said.
Beasley said he doesn’t recall anything missing when he inspected the fire station. He confirmed that Kit Carson’s investigator was on the scene before him.
“I was one of the last investigators on scene, several days after the explosion,” Beasley said.
Jury selection for the trial is scheduled for Oct. 19, according to an online court records database.
“I don’t think it will go to trial in October,” Pelton said. “It’s unheard of to have a case filed and go to trial within a year. It will be next year at the earliest.”
Casey hopes to begin depositions in May and keep the trial on schedule, he said.
“We can get this rolling if Kit Carson and the County get off their duffs,” Casey said.
Kit Carson officials and Ramona Hays could not be reached for comment by Tuesday evening.
Calls to County attorney Ted Trujillo and Kit Carson’s private forensic investigator Dennis Shelp were not returned by Tuesday evening.