Jury Deadlocked, Judge Declares Mistrial In Near-Fatal ATV Crash

After several hours of deliberation, the jury in the ATV crash that left a Muldrow teen near death was unable to reach a decision. The judge declared it a mistrial.

Thursday, August 20th 2015, 12:58 pm



After several hours of deliberation in the case of an ATV crash that left a Muldrow teen near death, the jury was unable to reach a decision.

The jury was deadlocked and sent a note to the judge Thursday evening saying, "We are not going to agree, we need more evidence." The jury was eventually brought in and said they couldn't agree who was driving the ATV at the time of the crash.

The judge then ruled a mistrial on the felony count of leaving the scene of an accident involving an injury.

The prosecutor said he will seek to retry Angela Gray as soon as possible.

The jury had been deliberating in the Christian Mayberry case since about 10 a.m. on Thursday and were only able to reach one conclusion, that Gray was found not guilty on one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Everything else was deadlocked.

Mayberry's mom, Kim, says she doesn't view the outcome as a failure because over the past two years every time something happens that seems to be bad, she says it turns out for the best.

"It's just been one miracle after the next, it's just been constant miracles with this boy. So we didn't get the outcome that he deserved today, but we're gonna get what he deserves, in every sense of the word and in every part of his life," Kim said.

prosecutors alleged that a mother of one of Christian Mayberry's friends drank alcohol and was the driver of the ATV with Mayberry as a passenger. They say after the crash, Gray left Mayberry for dead and he didn’t receive emergency help for three hours.

Mayberry is living with a traumatic brain injury after an ATV wreck three years ago. He was 16 at the time of the crash.

Gray claims Mayberry was driving, but she admitted to drinking. Mayberry’s mother said her son was tested the night of the crash and had no alcohol in his system.

Gray was charged with felony leaving the scene of an accident causing injury and had she been convicted, could have spent up to two years in prison.

8/19/2015 Related Story: Muldrow Teen Walks Again, Testifies Against Woman Accused Of Leaving Him To Die

Doctors told the family Mayberry likely would never talk again and certainly would never walk, but on Wednesday, he did both in front of a jury. With the help of two Sequoyah County deputies, Mayberry walked into a courtroom and testified.

He is living with a traumatic brain injury, but says he remembers what happened. After the crash, while he was lying in the road, he says he heard Gray tell her son that they needed to leave before the police arrived.

During closing arguments on Thursday morning, Mayberry sat on the front row, quietly and intently, during closing arguments. After the jury was released, he walked out of the courtroom with a smile on his face.

In closing arguments, the prosecutor told the jury that Gray was more afraid of being the 38-year-old hanging out with teenage boys drinking than she was about Christian, who was lying in a ditch bleeding.

Gray's attorney argued the state tried to "character assassinate" Gray, by trying make the jury believe she wanted to be a "cool mom" who was out partying with her son and his friends.

Gray's attorney said the state provided no evidence and claimed every witness lied on the stand, except for the three witnesses he called to testify.

The state closed by telling the jury Gray was the only adult there, yet she made the most juvenile of choices, adding that Mayberry is going to be sentenced for the rest of his life for her poor decision.

Mayberry spent more than half a year in a Tulsa hospital, then had to hop around between rehab and nursing homes, spent a year at a facility in Florida and will be receiving care at a brain center in Dallas next.

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