Sean Higgins’s defense is trying to knock out the blood test at the center of the case over the deaths of Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew, saying the sample was tested on plasma rather than whole blood. Higgins’s attorneys say that matters because a toxicology expert put his blood alcohol level at 0.075, below the legal limit, in a crash that killed the brothers in New Jersey last year.
The brothers were struck and killed on Aug. 29, 2024, in Oldmans Township while bicycling along a rural roadway after leaving their sister’s wedding rehearsal dinner. Johnny Gaudreau played for the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. Higgins is charged with two counts of reckless vehicular homicide, two counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and tampering with physical evidence.
Attorney Anthony Vecchio said, “They are supposed to test whole blood,” as he argued that the reported 0.87 result should not stand if the sample was handled the wrong way. Donny Epstein called the use of blood plasma “a head scratcher,” adding, “...why did they do it this way?”
Salem County prosecutor Michael Mestern said his office would “refute” the defense expert’s findings and said a jury would decide whether the test is valid. He also said prosecutors have “plenty” of other evidence to convict Higgins, a point that matters because the blood reading is not the only issue in a case that could send him to prison for 72 years if he is convicted.
Jonathan Bruno, a criminal defense attorney, said he was “very well respected” in describing one of the experts involved and said the plasma issue could give the defense a meaningful opening. “If they used plasma, a good criminal defense attorney would argue that the testing procedures were not followed appropriately, and that’s exactly what is happening here,” Bruno said. He added, “It may not be a fatal and critical flaw because there are other ways the state can proceed even if the blood reading itself–and this would be a big win for the defense–were to be kept out.” Bruno also said, “Even if you don’t have scientific data to speak to intoxication, the state can rely on physical observation and field sobriety tests,” underscoring the fight now headed toward a jury.
The dispute goes to the heart of how prosecutors will try to prove Higgins was impaired when the brothers were hit on a rural New Jersey road. The state says it can still build its case without the blood result. The defense says the testing method may have understated Higgins’s BAC, or made the result unreliable altogether. Either way, the fight over plasma versus whole blood now stands as the sharpest issue in a case already defined by a fatal night, a disputed number and two deaths that remain the center of it all.
