Was she driving on the wrong side of the road or using her phone when she killed a British teenager in a devastating hit-and-run, or both?
Ms Sacoolas, 43, and her husband, Jonathan, were stationed at a Royal Air Force base in Northamptonshire when she rammed into Harry Dunn, 19, while he was riding his motorbike.
Lawyers for Mr Dunn’s family have now raised the possibility that Ms Sacoolas was ‘distracted’ by her mobile phone at the time of the fatal crash in August 2019.
Court documents said Ms Sacoolas had been ‘evasive, unresponsive and inconsistent’ about her use of the phone.
According to court documents, no calls or text messages were found on Ms Sacoolas’ SIM card on the day of the accident, but call records on her phone were found for the day before and the day after.
The documents say the data “raises the possibility that Ms. Sacoolas was distracted by her mobile phone… and establishes that the relevant phone data has been deleted”.
Prior to the submission of the documents, it was widely believed that Ms Sacoolas had hit Mr Dunn because she had mistakenly driven on the wrong side of the road on her way out of the RAF air base.
She admitted responsibility for the accident, but controversially left England claiming diplomatic immunity before she could be charged and tried.
She refused to return and now lives with her husband and their three children in northern Virginia.
Mr Dunn’s family filed a civil suit in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, last year.
Last month, US District Judge TS Ellis III rejected an argument by lawyers for the Sacoolas that the case should be dismissed in the US because it should instead be heard in the UK.
According to the lawsuit, Ms Sacoolas was driving her Volvo SUV on the wrong side of the road near the Croughton base when she hit Mr Dunn.
The lawsuit said she had been living in England for several weeks at that time and should have been acclimated to driving on the left side of the road.
The lawsuit alleged that she did not call an ambulance and that it was a passerby who arrived minutes later who called for help.
Lawyers for Ms Sacoolas objected to how her actions were portrayed.
In February, in US District Court, John McGavin, one of Ms Sacoolas’ lawyers, revealed she was working for the US State Department at the time of the accident.
In an exchange with the court, Judge Ellis asked Mr. McGavin: “Are you saying that Mr. and Mrs. Sacoolas were employed by a United States intelligence agency, and that is why she is part ?
Mr McGavin replied: ‘I think that was a big factor, certainly’, in his departure from the UK.
It had previously been made public that her husband, Jonathan, worked for the US government at RAF Croughton.
Mr Dunn’s mother and father have fought tirelessly for justice since their son’s tragic death.