- Multiple women testified about being hit while walking in what prosecutors claim were intentional hit-and-runs.
- Pham, 28, is charged with eight counts of attempted murder and accused of intentionally targeting women in Salt Lake County.
- A judge will determine in August whether there is enough evidence to order him to stand trial.
SALT LAKE CITY — Multiple women testified Thursday about hearing a car accelerating right before it hit them.
Jill Mortensen said she had seen the car driving too fast during her morning walk. When it pulled to the wrong side of the street, she decided she should get out of the road.
"He had turned the car slowly, pointing it directly at me, and he just stepped on the gas," she said.
Mortensen remembers the sound of the impact and having her family around her in the emergency room. She said she was able to get behind a garbage can, and that saved her.
"I am the luckiest person on Earth when I hear what's happened," she said referring to similar testimonies from other women.
Anh Duy Pham, 28, faces multiple attempted murder charges accusing him of intentionally hitting women on six different occasions in Salt Lake County in late 2023 and early 2024. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill called Pham's actions "predatory targeting shrouded in the shadow of accidents."
The woman Pham is accused of targeting testified Thursday during his preliminary hearing.
'Looking for women to target'
Salt Lake police detective Eric Philbrick testified that he examined Pham's phone and discovered that around the time the women were hit, Pham had searched for lists of serial killers, the definition of homicide, specific serial killers, and homeless shelters for women.
The timing of the searches shows his intent to target women, which supports the attempted murder charges, argued deputy Salt Lake County district attorney Jamie Whiteway.
"There's no other reasonable explanation to look for shelters for young women except that he was looking for women to target," she said.
Salt Lake police detective Kevin Fortuna testified about the process of identifying the car involved in the hit-and-run and interviewing Pham, who told him he was the only one who drives his vehicle. Fortuna said investigators found a part for a Toyota Avalon that broke off during one of the collisions, and the piece matched up with one missing from Pham's car.
Another investigator, Mark Bucher, testified about location data from two cellphones in the car that placed Pham and the vehicle near many of the auto-pedestrian incidents.
'It's not stopping'
Maddie Peirce and her mom were walking in Sandy on Feb. 24, 2024, when she said they heard wheels behind them. The sound didn't stop, she heard a yelp, then looked back right as they got hit by a car.
"I see the sky, and then everything went black," she recalled.
When she became aware again, she was dazed and sitting up. She said her head was bleeding. Peirce saw her mother in the bike lane and was very scared until she heard grunts from the woman.
She said emergency medical personnel arrived, and she was taken to the hospital on a stretcher.
"Right before we got hit, I just had this thought — it's not stopping," testified her mother, Jocelyn Peirce.
She said she remembers being on the hood of the car and then EMTs hovering over her. She spent multiple days in the intensive care unit and said she still gets tired and has migraines, but is "doing much better" than she was right after the collision.
Just four days later on Feb. 28, 2024, Martha Knudson and her friend, Janette Brummett, were going for a walk in the morning after their pilates class, and she described a similar experience. Knudson said she watched the driver's hands on the steering wheel as he sharply turned his vehicle toward them. She woke up 20 to 30 feet away from her friend and called 911.
"I recall telling them that I think we were hit on purpose," Knudson testified.
She said she can no longer do high impact sports and has eye fatigue that makes it hard to look at screens and work.
Brummett wasn't able to work for a full year because of cognitive issues. She said she remembers falling off the car and hitting the sidewalk, then hearing the tires screech as the car that hit them veered away from a road closed sign.
Dacia Davis was hurt in a hit-and-run just a few days later on March 2, 2024, while she was in a crosswalk. She remembers being airborne and landing on her back in a snowbank. Although she didn't go to the hospital, she later learned she had suffered a broken pelvis.
Nisha Shrestha testified about needing inpatient treatment for over a month and continued physical therapy after being hit by Pham. She said she is doing better but is not back to normal. She feels weak, has a hard time focusing and can't stand up for more than five minutes or walk long distances.
Shrestha said she does not remember being hit but was told she was unconscious for eight days. She was injured on March 11, 2024.
The next day, March 12, is when Mortensen was hit.
The first hit-and-run prosecutors are charging Pham with occurred in August of 2023. A woman testified that she saw it happen and followed the driver, relaying his license plate information to police dispatchers.
What's next?
The next portion of Pham's preliminary hearing won't be held until Aug. 27. That's when attorneys will argue whether there is enough evidence for the judge to order Pham to stand trial.
Pham is charged with eight counts of attempted murder, a first-degree felony, after prosecutors chose to dismiss one count of attempted murder during the hearing on Thursday.
He is also charged with six counts of failure to stay at the scene of an accident involving serious injury, a third-degree felony, and three counts of failure to stay at the scene of an accident involving injury, one a class B misdemeanor, one a class A misdemeanor and another a third-degree felony.
