WILKES-BARRE — A vehicular homicide trial is under way for a tow-truck driver accused of fatally striking a stranded motorist he’d been dispatched to help.

Prosecutors say 56-year-old Robert Wickham drank three 24-ounce beers in the hours before he hit 55-year-old Denise Polinchak with her own open door while backing up her car on a snowy March 2011 day.

Wickham’s attorney said Tuesday in Luzerne County court his client had been drinking before the crash in Plains Township but called the car’s many mechanical defects the main culprit. Investigators claim Wickham was too drunk to be behind the wheel.