The King County Prosecutor’s office on Friday charged a 38-year-old Des Moines man with four counts of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault for the accident Oct. 25 on Auburn Way South that killed four young people and severely injured a fifth.
Police say Nicholas W. Anderson had taken a friend’s Nissan and, under the influence of alcohol, was driving it at least 60 mph in a posted 35-mph zone just before 2 a.m. when he lost control, left the road and slammed into a tree and mowed down three utility boxes.
The accident killed Andrew Tedford, 31, Caleb Graham, 23, Rehlein Stone, 21, and Suzanne McCay, 29. James Vaccaro, 23, sustained severe head trauma and remains in a coma at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, facing what doctors have told authorities are dim prospects for recovery.
All of the victims were passengers in the Nissan. A dog that had been in the car was later euthanized because of its catastrophic injuries.
Anderson had been at large ever since his release from Harborview Medical Center until Thursday night when he was arrested in Port Angeles in Clallam County. He was booked Friday morning into the Maleng Regional Justice Center, where he is to be arraigned at 9 a.m., Dec. 1 in courtroom GA. His bail is $750,000.
Here, according to the Determination of Probable Cause (DPC) prepared by the Auburn Police Department, is what happened:
On Oct. 25 at 1:59 a.m., Valley Com dispatched Auburn Police officers to the 3700 block of Auburn Way South in response to multiple reports of a car into a tree.
What the first officer found, according to the DPC, was a white Nissan facing northwest in an embankment on the north side of Auburn Way South, with “total catastrophic damage” to its interior and undercarriage. Only the driver’s seat had been spared.
According to the DPC, the violence of the collision had uprooted a tree 18 inches in diameter that was lying on the ground. The vehicle had also knocked over three power boxes and dislodged two guy wires stabilizing a power pole.
According to the DPC, the front end of the vehicle was separated from the trunk, with only the driver’s door lock holding the two pieces together. The vehicle’s entire interior flooring had broken apart.
Bodies and body parts lay scattered on the ground.
The officer found Anderson sitting on the ground amongst the bodies. According to the DPC, the officer caught a strong odor of intoxicants on Anderson and found his speech slurred and impaired appearance. Medics performed a blood draw.
According to the DPC, Anderson admitted to the officer during a post-Miranda interview that he had taken the Nissan from his roommate that evening and driven to Enumclaw to pick up Stone because she had called him for a ride, possibly to her mother’s house in Auburn. According to the DPC, at that point he said that he remembered nothing else and did not want to talk to the officer any more.
According to charging papers, Anderson is a repeat DUI offender and a convicted felon. His history in Washington lists malicious mischief and reckless driving. Elsewhere his history lists a DUI in Eugene, Ore., a habitual traffic offender-moving violation in Ocala, Fla., and a DV arrest in Mobile, Ala.
