SEATTLE — A taxi passenger killed in a fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip was identified Friday as a 48-year-old woman from Maple Valley.
Sandra Sutton-Wasmund died of multiple blunt force injuries, the Clark County, Nev., coroner’s office said.
Sutton-Wasmund co-owned a dress shop called The Dazzled Dame and had been in Las Vegas attending a trade show with her partner in the shop, said Debbie Tvedt, the office manager for a Maple Valley plumbing company, All Service Plumbing, that Sutton-Wasmund started with her husband, James Wasmund.
“It’s a big loss,” Tvedt said tearfully in a telephone interview Friday night. “This woman was everything to this community.
“Sandi was very, very, very active with the Maple Valley Chamber of Commerce and our entire community,” she said.
The Maple Valley-Black Diamond Chamber of Commerce website said Sutton-Wasmund was a board member from 2004 to 2011 before becoming a marketing representative.
Tvedt said her friend was a mother of three — a 17-year-old son, a 12-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son.
“Sandi was a loving wife, mother, daughter and sister. Her innocent and tragic loss will be felt by all of those who knew and loved her and by the community at large,” said a statement provided to KING-TV in Seattle on behalf of the woman’s family. “Her family appreciates the outpouring of love and support, and respect for privacy, shown throughout this very difficult time.”
A phone message left for James Wasmund was not immediately returned.
Maple Valley is southeast of Seattle.
Sutton-Wasmund was among three people killed in a dramatic, early-morning crash and fire Thursday that started with someone in a Range Rover shooting at a Maserati. The Maserati then hit the cab that Sutton-Wasmund was riding in and burst into flames, triggering a multi-vehicle crash.
The medical examiner says the cab driver, Michael Boldon, also died of multiple blunt force injuries and the Maserati’s driver died of a gunshot wound to the chest.
Police searched for the gunman in a black Range Rover SUV who triggered the violence.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
