Trial in deadly crash case is postponed

SANDPOINT — A Sandpoint woman’s trial for allegedly leaving the scene of a deadly crash is being pushed back slightly to accommodate the consideration of additional pretrial motions.

Brianna Lucille Knapp’s three-day trial in 1st District Court is now set to start on July 29. It was scheduled to start on July 8, but her defense counsel has filed motions to pare down the amount of information jurors will hear and to parse expected witness testimony in the case, court records indicate.

Knapp, 28, is accused of leaving the scene of a motorcycle crash which killed an off-duty Spokane Police officer last July.

Idaho State Police said Kurt P. Henson was riding westbound when he struck an abrupt lane edge in a construction zone on Highway 200 west of Clark Fork. Moments later, a westbound Knapp crashed a pickup truck into the fallen Henson, according to ISP.

Henson, a 47-year-old Post Falls resident, died at the scene. A passenger on Henson’s Harley-Davidson, Kimberly Lenox, 43, also of Post Falls, survived the crash.

Although state police reports and at least two eyewitness accounts indicate that Knapp crashed into the downed Henson, she is not accused of causing or contributing to his death. She is charged at the felony level with leaving the scene of the crash.

Knapp contends in court documents that she was unaware she had been involved in a collision. The crash-damaged pickup she was driving was found abandoned along Highway 200 and Knapp was arrested the next day after being questioned by a state trooper.

Knapp is free on her own recognizance while the case is pending.