EVERETT — A Bothell man was charged Wednesday with killing an Everett man in a high-speed crash just past Evergreen Way last year after smoking methamphetamine.
On the morning of Sept. 21, 2021, numerous witnesses saw a Nissan Pathfinder driving fast going north on Evergreen Way. An Everett police officer estimated it was going 70 mph in a 35 mph zone, according to the charging papers filed in Snohomish County Superior Court. Another witness later told investigators the car was going between 80 and 100. Yet another saw it go through a red light.
The officer reported the Pathfinder used the center turn lane to pass other northbound cars. He tried to follow the speeding car, but it weaved through traffic and drove out of sight, the charges say.
A witness reportedly told police the Pathfinder tried to drive her off the road. As it did so, she made eye contact with the driver, identified in the charges as Sean Baskins.
“She said the male driver seemed high, drunk, and mad,” deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow wrote in the charging papers. “She said she will never forget his face.”
Another driver that morning reported the Pathfinder swerved around her. As it swerved back, only the two driver’s side tires were on the ground, according to court documents.
That’s when it crashed into the passenger side of a Nissan Frontier turning left from the center lane across the northbound lanes near the intersection of 41st Street and Rucker Avenue, prosecutors allege.
The force of the collision pushed the Frontier, driven by Thomas Ogden, into the parking lot of an auto repair shop. Security footage from the repair shop reportedly shows the Frontier overturned and riding upside down on the hood of Baskins’ Pathfinder.
The Pathfinder shed the Frontier when it crashed into an unoccupied car at the auto repair shop, forcing the Frontier to fly onto the hood of the parked car, according to court papers.
Shortly after the crash, Baskins emerged from the Pathfinder, surveillance video showed. He looked into the passenger side of the Frontier, then walked around, according to the charges. As he walked around, he repeatedly held his hands above his head, as if surrendering to police.
After a few minutes, Baskins, now 36, opened the hatch door of his Pathfinder. He reportedly sat down in it with his feet hanging out.
The Everett officer who had tried to follow Baskins arrived at the scene. The Bothell man told him, “I did it, I’m the one, I (expletive) up,” according to court documents. The suspect told another officer the crash was his fault because he was driving too fast and couldn’t stop in time. He reported he was driving fast because he was mad. He told investigators he didn’t know how fast he was going.
One of the officers noticed Baskins was energetic and twitchy. The suspect kept his eyes wide open, the charges say.
Baskins refused to participate in a drug evaluation, but acknowledged smoking methamphetamine three hours before the crash, prosecutors allege. Meth was also reportedly found in his wallet.
Authorities took a sample of the suspect’s blood. The state toxicology lab recently told Darrow, the deputy prosecutor, that the sample was still being analyzed, according to the charging papers.
Police found Ogden trapped in the overturned Frontier. As they waited for paramedics, his breathing stopped. He was pronounced dead at the scene. His cause of death was blunt-force injuries, the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office determined.
Ogden was 43.
An obituary noted Ogden was a “dedicated father, brother, son, and friend.”
“He will be greatly missed for his adventurous and fun-loving spirit,” the obituary reads.
He was survived by his daughter, parents and three siblings.
Baskins suffered a collapsed lung in the crash, Darrow said. He was admitted to the hospital for a few days, so police decided not to arrest him immediately after the crash.
Prosecutors charged the suspect with vehicular homicide Wednesday. Baskins was accused of operating a motor vehicle “in a reckless manner” and while under the influence of drugs.
Baskins has no felony history, according to court records. He has seven prior misdemeanor violations over the past decade in Snohomish and King counties, including for impaired driving in 2012. Darrow notes in court papers that charge was reduced from driving under the influence.
Snohomish County prosecutors also plan to charge the defendant with a DUI for a separate incident in May 2021, in which his blood-alcohol content was allegedly found to be 0.15, almost double the legal limit.
Baskins has also been arrested several times in the last few months on misdemeanor allegations. All of those cases have been dismissed, however, court records show.
Prosecutors plan to ask for Baskins to be held on $100,000 bail, or $250,000 if a bench warrant is needed to compel him to appear in court.
Arraignment is set for Nov. 7.
Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.
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