Bakdash Testifies: 'Matt Said "Hit Him" and I Figured I Would Scare Him'

Timothy Bakdash, the Roseville-native who , testified today in his murder trial at Hennepin County Court.

He spoke in a medicated monotone (he’s been on heavy doses of the anti-depressants Remeron and Trazodone since his incarceration) and maintained that he intended only “to scare” the “guy in the blue shirt” and that he was unaware Van Handel was critically injured until he was apprehended by police, six days after he drove his car into four Dinkytown pedestrians.

“I made a mistake, I was drunk,” the 29-year-old said as Van Handel’s mother, Ann, covered her eyes with her palms in the front row of the courtroom’s gallery. “I don’t know why I got in the car. I’m sorry to the families.”

Bakdash defended himself by claiming he was massively intoxicated and his decision-making skills severely impaired, but that he intended only to cause fear, not death. Bakdash also said that when he told a friend, “They deserved it,” he was unaware that anyone was fatally injured and that he was referring only to someone getting “swiped” by his car.

Bakdash said that the day after he hit Van Handel, he gave his car away to a friend and later gave the friend $500 for repairs.

On April 14, Bakdash said, he came home by 6 p.m. to his mother’s house in Roseville from his job fixing two-way radios for Professional Wireless Communications in Burnsville.

After dinner, he drove to his friend Matt Damman’s house and then to the Library Bar in Dinkytown. Between Damman’s house and the bar, he said he smoked about a gram-and-a-half of marijuana.

He said he arrived at the Library by 10:30 p.m. and, over the next three-and-a-half hours, consumed 15 to 20 rum, Crown Royal and Jack Daniel’s mixed drinks along with three to five shots, Jägerbombs and Applejacks, before leaving a little before the 2 a.m. bar close.

Thomas Burr, a toxicologist, testified for the defense that a person who drank that much would have a blood alcohol percentage of .29 to .38.

“I was extremely intoxicated,” Bakdash said. “I was kind of in and out of reality. Once I walked out of the bar, I started spinning a little so I was drunk, real drunk.”

During cross-examination, assistant Hennepin County Attorney William Richardson questioned Bakdash’s level of intoxication.

“You managed to drive all the way home without hitting anything or anyone,” he said. “If you turned yourself in, we might know what your blood alcohol was at the time.”

After bar close, Bakdash said he walked toward his car, which was parked several blocks north of the bar.

“It was kind of a mission, I remember, because I was extremely intoxicated at that time,” he said. “My motor skills weren’t all there.”

When he got to his car, he said a “guy with a blue shirt” was yelling at him.

“I told him, ‘I don’t want any trouble, I don’t want a fight,’” Bakdash said. “At that time, he lightly slapped me on the face.”

Bakdash said he then climbed into his car, a Mitsubishi Galant, and though Damman suggested they get a cab, decided to drive.

He said he then drove toward home along 5th Street when he spotted the man in the blue shirt.

“I said, ‘There’s the guy’ and then Matt said, ‘Hit him,’ and I figured I would scare him,” Bakdash said. “I thought it was kind of a stupid joke and a stupid thing to do.”

Bakdash said he drove at the man, A.J. Epperson, trying and failing to swerve away at the last moment and clipping Epperson's foot. Bakdash said he was going about 15 miles per hour (other witnesses, including Leslie Falk and Sarah Bagley estimated his speed at 25 to 30 MPH) and his car then made contact with another body.

“It happened like one, two,” he said. “There was a woman who went up on the windshield and then came off and at that moment my heart dropped.”

Bakdash said he then accelerated his car.

“I panicked and freaked out,” he said. “Fear came over me, and I intended to flee the scene.”

A short distance farther west, Bakdash’s Galant hit Van Handel, who was carried 50 feet on the hood of the car before soaring through the air and hitting his head on a telephone pole. But Bakdash said his windshield was cracked and shattered from the impact of the woman and he was unaware he had hit a third or fourth person until his arrest nearly a week later.

“Toward the end of the block I swerved and heard a couple sounds,” he said, “but I didn’t see anyone and it sounded like something swiped my car.”

After Damman got out of the car a few blocks from the collision, Bakdash said he drove his car home and parked it in his mother’s garage.

‘They deserved it’

During his testimony earlier in the week, Matt Damman said Bakdash told him the man in the blue shirt “deserved it.” Bakdash acknowledged that the words were his, but he said when he made the statement, he was unaware of the extent of the damage he caused.

“It was a stupid thing to say; no one deserves to be hit by a car,” Bakdash repeated several times during his testimony.

Bakdash said he did not read media reports, except for a single Star Tribune headline, in the six days between the hit-and-run and his arrest and that he thought he had only hit two people and that he was unsure whether he had hit someone seriously, despite being told he had by two co-workers.

Dr. James Alsdurf, a psychologist testifying in Bakdash’s defense, said Bakdash told him that he had read in the newspaper that three people were injured, one critically.

“His capacity to be clear about details is strikingly confused,” Alsdurf said.

‘I told her that I hit a deer’

Bakdash said that on Saturday, April 16, he took a morning trip to his drug dealer’s house before smoking marijuana with Brandon Bordeau, a “semi-friend, semi-acquaintance” with an affinity for Jägermeister shots.

“Every occasion I met up with him, I either smoked marijuana or sold it,” Bakdash said of their relationship.

Bakdash said he confided in Bordeau about the hit-and-run.

“I told him I didn’t want to kill the guy in the blue shirt, and I didn’t want to hurt my tire or my rim.” Bakdash said.

Bakdash said Bordeau agreed to take the Galant and that he agreed to trail Bordeau to his home in White Bear Lake so that the license plate would not be visible.

“He kept bugging me for the car,” said Bakdash, adding that his intention was not to get rid of evidence. “Brandon wanted the car, and I didn’t want to get in trouble.”

Bakdash asked his mother, Diane, whose name the car was in, to sign the title.

“I told her that I hit a deer,” he said.

Diane Bakdash was subsequently charged with felony accomplice and arrested for her alleged role in helping her son sell his car, but she was later cleared of all charges.

Timothy Bakdash said that Bordeau told him to leave the date blank on the title form because he wanted to wait three months to a year before registering it.

On Monday, April 18, Bakdash said he gave Bordeau $500 for repairs made to fix the damages from the collision.

Bakdash’s attorney Joe Tamburino closed his questioning by asking Bakdash, “Do you realize the damage you’ve done?”

“I know that it’s serious now,” Bakdash replied. “I’m willing to pay for this, but I know I didn’t intentionally try to kill or hurt anyone.”

“Did you mean to kill anyone?” Tamburino pressed.

“No I did not.”

Bakdash is facing one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Closing statements are expected Monday in the trial.