Man pleads not guilty in plane crash mystery

[Kip Powick]

Kalispell, Mont. — Jaroslaw (Jerry) Ambrozuk told a judge Thursday that the girl who drowned when he crashed a plane into a lake near Kalispell, Mont. in 1982 was the love of his life and her death was accidental.

Jerry Ambrozuk, 43, is charged with negligent homicide in the death of 18-year-old Dianne Babcock. He pleaded not guilty Thursday in District Court in Kalispell.

“We planned to elope and run away from home,” Mr. Ambrozuk told Judge Kitty Curtis. “It was a consensual decision we made over a period of months.”

The two left Canada and planned to put down the rented plane in Little Bitterroot Lake near Marion and disappear into the United States, he said.

Mr. Ambrozuk had been a fugitive until Aug. 30, when law enforcement arrested him on a warrant in Plano, Texas.

Authorities had believed Mr. Ambrozuk, then 19, and Ms. Babcock were flying from Penticton, British Columbia, to Vancouver, B.C., when he somehow veered off course into Montana.

Mr. Ambrozuk's strange behaviour after the crash raised suspicion, authorities said.

He didn't report the crash or his girlfriend's death, he apparently built a campfire on the shore of the lake to dry off and then vanished.

Authorities discovered the plane after Mr. Ambrozuk called a friend in Canada and told him Ms. Babcock had drowned because she was unable to get out of her seat belt before the plane sank.

Mr. Ambrozuk said Thursday he told his friend about the crash because he wanted Ms. Babcock to “have a proper burial,” and so her family would know what happened to her.

But Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan said Mr. Ambrozuk didn't sound like a grieving man who had lost “the love of his life” in a transcript of the call.

He read Mr. Ambrozuk's words from the transcript: “I went because I was going, and she went because I guess she was in love with me or something like that. I wanted to get away, that's all...She tagged along.”

Mr. Ambrozuk responded, “It was a terrible thing. I said, ‘I felt like half of me died,' if you read that part.”

Mr. Ambrozuk said that after the crash, he went to New York for a short time. He then moved to Texas, where he changed his name and eventually started a software-development company.

Mr. Ambrozuk has been held without bail since he was returned to Montana from Texas last month. Asked to disclose his finances during Thursday's bail hearing, Mr. Ambrozuk said he has about $500,000 (U.S.) worth of property, and vehicles valued at about $100,000, including a Dodge Viper he bought for $71,000.

He also said he has about $100,000 in a Merrill Lynch account.

“You have held up remarkably well over the last hard 24 years,” Mr. Corrigan remarked.

Curtis set bail at $250,000. She also set a March 12 trial date for District Judge Stewart Stadler's court.

Mr. Ambrozuk's lawyer, Patrick Sherlock, said the case “could be” resolved before then, presumably with a plea agreement.

Mr. Corrigan said he had considered recommending a suspended sentence, but “after the attitude and self-serving statements today, I'm keeping an open mind.”

“My hope is that he would plead guilty and acknowledge responsibility for that girl's death,” he said. “If not, we go to trial.”

Sherlock said no one wants to see Mr. Ambrozuk go to prison for an accident that happened when he was a teenager.

Mr. Ambrozuk's story has attracted media attention in both Canada and the United States. Representatives from NBC's “Dateline” and CBS' “48 Hours” were in the courtroom Thursday.

[Pivot]

I went to High School with Jerry. He was in one of my weather classes. I talked with him every now and then because we both had an interest in flying. From what I can remember he was a very nice guy. But we were just kids back then....