WEST JORDAN — A man charged with murder in a fatal seven-car crash began his trial Tuesday by pleading guilty to the bulk of the charges against him, but three of the most serious charges will be decided by a jury.

Bill Robert Thompson, 45, wept as he pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, a third-degree felony, and seven class A misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence, all related to the deadly crash on May 8, 2014. Thompson also pleaded guilty to two counts of assault and one count of domestic violence in the presence of a child, class B misdemeanors, stemming from a fight at his home that pushed him to get into his pickup truck and speed through Draper.

Thompson, of Draper, is accused of deliberately running a red light at Lone Peak Parkway and 12300 South during a drunken rampage, causing the crash that killed Susan Madsen, 43, and injured seven others.

Following Thompson's plea, the seven-man, two-woman jury was brought in to hear opening arguments in a trial for the three remaining charges against Thompson: murder, a first-degree felony, and two counts of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony.

"We're going to ask you to hold him accountable for the crimes he is (responsible for), and that is automobile homicide, not murder," Thompson's attorney, Rudy Bautista, told jurors Tuesday. "There's only three counts you will need to address, because he has pleaded guilty to all the others."

But prosecutor Peter Leavitt said that while Thompson didn't deliberately target or seek out Madsen to kill her, her death caused by his "depraved indifference" is nonetheless a murder.

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Leavitt asked jurors to hold Thompson accountable "for his complete disregard of human life, accountability for putting so many people in danger, and above all, accountability for the death of Susan Madsen."

On the day of the crash, Thompson, a longtime sufferer of anxiety and alcoholism, had turned to drinking to try to alleviate the pain and emotion of Xanax withdrawals after his prescription ran out, Bautista said. Thompson's doctor, who is expected to testify during the trial, had moved and Thompson was struggling to get a new prescription.

Explaining the plea Thompson had entered, Bautista did not dispute the drunken fight that preceded the crash — shouting at his wife and hitting a female roommate and a neighbor who attempted to intervene. Intoxicated, he then got into his truck to "cool off" and drove away, a weighty choice among a number of bad decisions he made that day, Bautista said.

"He didn't want to kill anyone that day," the defense attorney said.

Thompson was driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.22, well above the legal limit of .08, Leavitt noted, calling Madsen's death "much more than a drunk driving case."

"Any one of these injuries could have been fatal," Leavitt said, outlining Madsen's extensive, traumatic injuries. "On May 8, Susan Madsen suffered all of them."

Though Bautista claimed Thompson had lifted his foot off the accelerator to slow down as he approached the intersection, believing the light was going to turn green, Leavitt said the airbag system recorded data indicating that Thompson never touched the brakes. Thompson was reportedly traveling about 60 mph in the 35 mph zone.

Leavitt also outlined the upcoming testimony of two teenage girls who got lost as they were driving and found themselves on a dead-end road, encountering Thompson in his truck prior to the crash. Rather than heading back the way he came after turning around at the dead end, Leavitt said Thompson squared his truck off with the girls' Mini Cooper. He then sped up to the car, braked and bumped into the side of it, and then backed up and did it again.

"They got a look at the defendant's face, his face," Leavitt said, pointing to Thompson. "He was laughing, amused at their terror."

The trial is set to last five days.

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