COEUR d'ALENE - If Jonathan W. Ellington had been pulled over by law enforcement for being a rude jerk in a Chevrolet Blazer who confronted two women in another vehicle, he likely would have been ticketed for disturbing the peace.

"That was the path I was going down," Kootenai County sheriff's deputy William Klinkefus testified Tuesday during Ellington's re-trial in 1st District Court in Kootenai County.

Instead of disturbing the peace, Ellington is charged with second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery. He's being tried for a second time on those charges after the Idaho Supreme Court threw out an earlier jury's verdict because a prosecution witness lied on the stand.

On New Year's Day 2006, Klinkefus was the officer dispatched to the intersection of Ramsey and Brunner roads after two women called 911 and reported an aggressive and angry driver, who turned out to be Ellington. The two women were sisters Jovon and Joleen Larsen.

Ellington, 51, of Athol, ended up driving over the Larsen sisters' mother, Vonette Larsen, and killing her at the end of a high-speed chase that started when the sisters and Ellington had their initial confrontation that January morning on the Rathdrum Prairie. But did he run her over deliberately? That's the question jurors will be asked to answer.

Klinkefus described the sisters as "giggly" that day when he showed up on the scene and questioned them at the Ramsey-Brunner intersection.

"I felt they were kind of excited," the deputy said.

Klinkefus took off in one direction looking for Ellington's Blazer, telling the sisters to "sit tight." It turned out he went the wrong way, and they didn't follow his instruction.

What Klinkefus testified he didn't know at the time was the sisters also had called their parents, Joel and Vonette Larsen, who got into a car and drove to the scene to help look for Ellington.

Soon the Larsens would spot Ellington's Blazer and would chase him, reaching speeds of 90 mph. The sisters called 911 again. Soon Ellington was cornered at Scarcello Road, east of Highway 41.

Ellington then allegedly rammed the sisters' Honda Accord, then backed up and took off again, when he ran over Vonette Larsen. She had exited the car she was driving and run across Scarcello to reach the Honda, to help her daughters.

Klinkefus told the jury that Joel Larsen, shortly after the incident, "stated that they at one point attempted to block him in so he could not leave," pulling their Subaru into the eastbound lane of Scarcello while the daughters were in the westbound lane.

Ellington made it around the Subaru before colliding with the front of the Honda and pushing it partially off the roadway. A deputy found the Honda was in drive when the vehicles collided, and a front tire of the car was on the center line at the time of impact.

Like his wife, Joel Larsen exited the Subaru. But he also grabbed his .44-caliber Magnum handgun, firing one shot into the motor of the Blazer. Evidence presented during the trial has shown that another round from his handgun hit the rubber molding of a rear side window of the Blazer.

Prosecutors have said Ellington was angry at his fiancee before he even got into his rig that morning.

He then encountered the Larsen sisters while he was out driving. He cut them off and stopped in front of their lane, got out of his vehicle, cussed at them and then hit the driver's side front window with his hand, prosecutors said.

That triggered the high-speed chase.

In other testimony Tuesday, the officer who first put handcuffs on Ellington in this case recalled his response.

"I believe he said, 'They were shooting at me,'" said Idaho State Police Sgt. Tim Johnson.

John Daily, a traffic reconstruction expert for the prosecution, said he could not determine with any scientific certainty that Ellington deliberately ran over Vonette Larsen.

"I can't get into his mind," Daily testified. "I don't know what he was thinking."

Marco Ross, who was working for the Spokane County Medical Examiner's Office at the time of the incident and conducted the autopsy on Vonette Larsen, said she died from blunt-force injuries.

A blunt-force impact to her torso left her with a torn atrium (a chamber of the heart), causing significant internal bleeding.

She also had blunt-force injuries to her head, with numerous skull fractures and brain injuries.

Under cross examination, public defender John Adams asked whether the injuries were consistent with someone who is struck dead on as they are standing up, as opposed to being run over.

"You can't tell the jury whether Mrs. Larsen was running, standing or lying down when she was struck?" Adams said.

Ross agreed, he couldn't.

Ann Cunningham, who was Ann Thomas in 2006 and Ellington's fiancee, testified that she and Ellington were "arguing" about her health the morning of the incident.

"It wasn't a screaming match," she said.

She said they were arguing about how she was taking care of her health.

She said their argument lasted 15 minutes, starting around 2 or 3 a.m. She said they ignored each other for several hours afterward before he got in his Blazer and left their Athol home.

She said he came back later and was "agitated," and "fidgety," after an encounter with two women in a car.

She said he was "rambling" on about how they tried to "run him off the road."

At one point during her testimony, Cunningham unexpectedly darted from the courtroom.

"My blood pressure is skyrocketing," she said, just before bolting. "I can feel it in my kidneys."

The trial, which lasted 11 days last time, continues today.