Trial starts for fatal hit and run outside Olds bar

Opening arguments got underway Monday in the trial of a man accused of running down and killing a college student in Olds last fall.

Jeffrey Kevin Leinen, 25, is charged in the death of 18-year-old Nicholas Baier outside a bar in the central Alberta community.

Baier was standing with a group of friends outside the Texas Mickey Bar shortly after midnight on Oct. 29, 2010, when a pickup truck plowed through the crowd.

Baier was killed, one other person was seriously injured, and two more were treated in hospital for minor injuries.

Leinen, who is from Calgary, was arrested a short time later.

It’s alleged he got in a fight after he knocked a patron out of a wheelchair, provoking an angry reaction inside the bar.

After he was thrown out by bouncers, Leinen got in his truck, drove around the lot, squared it to group of people standing outside and accelerated towards them, killing Baier, Crown lawyer Roy Smith said in court Monday. 

Leinen is charged with second degree murder, aggravated assault, and criminal negligence in the operation of motor vehicle causing bodily harm.

Baier was a second-year agricultural management student at Olds College.

"For many of them it was a brush with death. For Nicholas Baier it was the end of his life," Smith said.

"This trial is about the accused’s intention at the time he accelerated his truck. The accused was angry and took action, deliberately and intentionally," he said.

Leinen’s trial before a Calgary judge and jury will hear from 25 witnesses. It's scheduled to last two to three weeks.