Stepmother’s Manslaughter Trial Begins : Court: The jury hears how a Costa Mesa man was run over with a Mercedes-Benz, but there’s no hint yet about any family grudge held by the defendant, Betty Young Davies.

A prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that a Costa Mesa man who was run over by his wife’s stepmother in a maroon Mercedes-Benz was killed not by the impact but because he lost his grip on the car’s hood and fell off as the driver sped away.

“He was grabbing as best he could to stay on the hood. . . . The defendant kept driving,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis R. Rosenblum said. “But he finally lost his grip and fell on the left side of his head, . . . causing massive brain damage.”

What remains untold is what kind of dispute would have led Betty Young Davies, now 59, of Newport Beach to drive to her stepdaughter’s home in the 800 block of Congress Street to harass Wendy Ward and her husband, James Ward.

Rosenblum did not mention a family dispute during his opening statement Wednesday at Davies’ involuntary manslaughter trial. And Davies’ attorney, Marshall M. Schulman, has so far declined to discuss the defendant’s motives.

But Schulman has predicted that prosecutors will not be able to prove that Davies knew that she had injured Ward.

Schulman told Judge James K. Turner that he will not make his opening statement until after the prosecution presents its case.

Davies has also declined to discuss the case. Davies, who is free on $10,000 bail, was accompanied to court by a daughter.

Police reports show several complaints from the Wards that Davies had been harassing them for reasons the Wards did not know.

Ward, 31, a machinist, was fatally injured on Dec. 19, 1989, a few minutes after a neighbor called the Wards to tell them that a woman was spying on their house, sneaking behind trees and a nearby van.

Ward had been in his wood shop making a sign for one of the couple’s two children. Wendy Ward was in the kitchen making brownies, the prosecutor told jurors.

Ward, dressed in shorts and barefoot, listened to the neighbor on a cordless telephone as he walked out the front door while the neighbor directed him to where she said Davies was hiding.

Rosenblum told jurors that the neighbor could hear Ward through the telephone confront the woman, exclaiming: “Betty, what are you doing here? Why don’t you just leave us alone!”

Ward then followed her to her car. By then Wendy Ward had come out of the house, frantic about the confrontation and asking a neighbor to call police.

“Then, Jim Ward made a crucial error in judgment,” Rosenblum told the jury. “He stood directly in front of the car and told her, ‘Betty, you are not going to go this time. We want some answers.”’

The prosecutor said Davies then accelerated the Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL and “drove right through him.”

Rosenblum said neighbors will testify that they could hear loud banging as Ward desperately tried to get a better grip on the hood of the car.

Ward died three days later of head injuries. Davies’ car was later recovered by police from her garage. There was damage to the windshield where part of the victim’s body had hit, police said.

Rosenblum did not seek a murder charge against Davies, saying it might be too difficult to prove her state of mind at the time. If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, she could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison.

Wednesday’s court hearing was marked by several bitter exchanges between Rosenblum and Schulman outside the jury’s presence. At one point, when Rosenblum was addressing the judge, he stopped because he heard Schulman talking and asked what he was saying.

“I was just telling my client you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Schulman said.

Later, during an argument between them after Judge Turner had left the bench, Rosenblum accused Schulman of being on “a huge ego trip.”

Rosenblum’s first witness was Wendy Bidner, the neighbor who first alerted the Wards that a woman was lurking outside their house. She will continue as the first witness today.