Carico, 40, a former Wise County prosecutor and once Virginia’s deputy attorney general, departed the bench suddenly and without explanation in early June. Since then, law enforcement officers have confirmed testifying before the state’s Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission about the events surrounding the wreck.
The 911 records and law enforcement logs could have painted a clear picture of the events that transpired immediately after the wreck. Instead, a Bristol Herald Courier review has uncovered some inconsistencies.
For example, Wise Volunteer Fire Chief Conley Holbrook initially told a reporter that firefighters arrived at the scene after paramedics and sheriff’s deputies had control of the accident.
Yet the 911 report clearly shows that firefighters arrived before the Wise Volunteer Rescue Squad. In fact, the department’s incident report shows that a firefighter treated Carico’s injured passenger.
Also unclear are the whereabouts after the scene was cleared that night of four law enforcement officers dispatched to help.
The two county deputies handling the call are missing for at least an hour after the judge’s SUV is towed away and the scene is cleared, according to 911 logs and a timeline provided by tow truck driver Jack Hubbard.
The 911 report shows that two University of Virginia at Wise campus police officers were called to the scene, and more than three hours later were cleared and available for another assignment.
While campus police reports confirm that two officers were called to help, those reports also show the officers were told moments later not to come, however Law enforcement
Carico slammed his SUV into a tree and a group of large rocks lining Pole Bridge Road after swerving to miss a deer at 1:18 a.m., police records show.
Wise County Sheriff’s Deputy Jarrod Bates said he wrapped up his involvement with Carico’s wreck moments after a tow truck pulled the SUV from a ditch and left.
Hubbard, of J & F Wrecker Service, estimates he pulled the Nissan Pathfinder from a shallow ditch by 3 a.m., at the latest. And he remembers that only two people were there – since verified as Bates and Lt. Shawn Daniels – each leaving in separate cars at the same time.
Yet the 911 report shows that Bates and Daniels finished covering the wreck and were available for another call at 4:05 a.m., slightly more than an hour after leaving Pole Bridge Road.
When asked where his officers could have been, Sheriff R.D. “Ronnie” Oakes said he didn’t know but suggested they might have been at the hospital with Carico’s injured passenger, Jeremy Hubbard.
Hubbard, no relation to the tow truck driver, was jailed by the judge in recent years over shoplifting charges. He said in an interview for a previous story that no officers came to the hospital that night.
Oakes has confirmed that one of his deputies chauffeured Carico to his home, slightly less than three miles away on the same road as the crash. But Oakes will not say which deputy drove the judge home or when.
Also keeping silent is Bates, who said he can’t discuss anything about the wreck that was included in his testimony to the Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, which investigates the conduct of Virginia’s judges.
“I would talk about this, but I’ve been given a stern talking to not to,” he said.
Daniels, who filed the wreck report, could not be reached for comment.
Campus police
University of Virginia’s College at Wise Police Chief Steve McCoy readily produced a pair of daily police logs showing that his officers did not respond to the Carico wreck.
Thank God my men were not involved with that,” he said. “I know where you’re going with this.”
On one report, Officer Jeremy Price wrote that he was called to the scene, and started to go, but was called off “after other deputies showed up.”
In another report, Officer Mike Mullins wrote that his call to the scene was “cancelled before arrival by deputies.”
Those campus reports contradict the report on file with 911 emergency dispatch, which has two campus officers listed as available to take other calls at 3:14 a.m., slightly less than two hours after being called to help. McCoy said he didn’t have an answer for the discrepancy. “You’ll have to ask 911 about that,” he said.
Wise County Dispatch Supervisor Nancy Mullins, when asked Thursday how her office might have a different account of events, said she needed permission from the county attorney to talk about dispatch procedure. Mullins did not call back with an answer by the end of business Friday.
Fire and rescue
When first approached, Wise Volunteer Fire Chief Holbrook said his department had little involvement with Carico’s wreck.
Everything was pretty much taken care of by the time we got there, so we just turned around and came back,” Holbrook said of his firefighters.
But the 911 report later obtained by the Herald Courier shows the Fire Department on scene four minutes before Wise Rescue Squad arrived in an ambulance.
When later asked about the 911 report, Holbrook introduced firefighter Adam Cox, the licensed emergency medical technician who first treated Hubbard.
Cox, the only firefighter on the scene licensed to give medical treatment, said he treated only Hubbard, and does not recall seeing or hearing any mention of Carico.
Within minutes of arriving by Hubbard’s side, Cox said he transferred patient treatment over to the rescue squad. The 911 report shows the ambulance leaving the scene and bound for the hospital after spending roughly 20 minutes on Pole Bridge Road.
But the report does not show precisely when the rescue squad took over patient treatment. Only the rescue squad has that information.
At first, squad Capt. Jim Dotson said the times of arrival, reaching the patient, and then heading to the hospital were protected medical information.
When told that the 911 report already provided some of those times, he said the squad sometimes bases its medical reports on the times supplied by emergency dispatchers. At other times, it bases its reports on the squad’s own clock, he said. He then directed the reporter back to the county’s 911 office.
Dotson then refused to answer when asked whether his squad used its own times for the medical reports detailing Hubbard’s treatment, or those supplied by 911. “I’m not going to answer questions that you already have the answers to,” he said, walking away.
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