There’s a new small detail but important development in the investigation of the fatal Tesla Model S crash while the Autopilot system was activated. We now learn that the Florida Highway Patrol confirmed that both a laptop and DVD player were found in the car, but that neither were running when found at the scene.

Sergeant Kim Montes confirmed the details to Reuters today:

“Neither the computer nor a DVD player also found in the vehicle was running after the crash, according to Sergeant Kim Montes, who said investigators could not determine whether the driver of the Tesla was operating either at the time of the crash.”

It goes against what the truck driver involved in the crash told the media after the accident. Speaking with Associated Press, Frank Baressi said the Tesla driver, Joshua Brown, was “playing Harry Potter on the TV screen” at the time of the crash and driving so quickly that “he went so fast through my trailer I didn’t see him.”

“It was still playing when he died and snapped a telephone pole a quarter mile down the road,” Baressi told The Associated Press. He later acknowledged that he couldn’t actually see the movie and only heard it. The police said that charges are pending against Baressi who didn’t yield the right of way when crossing the road in his semi-tractor trailer. In an ABC News report, another witness said that “a movie was playing on the dash”: NHTSA said that its evaluation of the accident is on-going. Our recent articles on the accident: Tesla driver dead in Autopilot crash credited the system for saving him in near miss caught on video

Tesla Autopilot crash: Images of the fatal accident’s aftermath emerge [Video]

Understanding the fatal Tesla accident on Autopilot and the NHTSA probe

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