Bothell man guilty in hit-and-run that killed 2 pedestrians

EVERETT — A jury found a Bothell man guilty Thursday of a hit-and-run when he killed two pedestrians last year.

While driving west on Highway 524 on the morning of Feb. 19, Alec Gajdos drove off the road and hit what he thought was a garbage bin, he told investigators.

Gajdos, now 28, reported he’d had trouble sleeping. He had reportedly smoked some marijuana.

According to what he told police, Gajdos looked over his shoulder for a few seconds, didn’t see anything and continued driving to work.

Gajdos got to work on time that day and talked with a coworker about a car crash he’d been in, a witness told detectives. He reportedly said it was his fault, but he said he didn’t need to leave work because there was nothing he could do at that point.

After work that day, he was arrested at a nearby 7-Eleven. He drove his Chevy Malibu into the parking lot to get a drink with part of the windshield shattered and caved in. A corner of the bumper was also missing. Troopers were still investigating in the area and they noticed the car.

A detective reportedly told Gajdos he’d hit and killed two people, Carson Cox and Sara Fox-Heath, not a garbage bin. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner determined Gajdos hit Fox-Heath first, propelling her into Cox.

A jogger found their bodies hours later in the bushes along the road, according to court papers.

Cox, of Snohomish, was 32. Fox-Heath, of Seattle, was 39.

“I can’t believe this, man,” Gajdos told the detective, sobbing.

In September, prosecutors charged him. This week he stood trial in Snohomish County Superior Court before Judge Karen Moore.

The fact that Gajdos hit and killed Cox and Fox-Heath was not in question. The jurors’ task was to decide whether Gajdos fulfilled his responsibilities to assess the situation before leaving, even if all he thought what he hit was a garbage bin.

“Every person that drives a motor vehicle in the state of Washington, regardless of whether they are at fault, when they become aware that they have been involved in an accident, they have duties,” deputy prosecutor Tobin Darrow told the jury in his closing statement.

Every driver needs to stop their car, remain at the scene of the crash, call the police and try to render aid to anyone injured, Darrow said. The deputy prosecutor argued Gajdos did none of those things.

Darrow argued the defendant’s brief investigation without leaving his car was not enough to make him innocent. Kenneth Williams, Gajdos’s public defender, argued his client didn’t think he hit people, so he didn’t think he had a responsibility to remain on scene.

It was also a dark morning on a narrow road without a shoulder or any driveways to park in and investigate what happened, the defense attorney said.

“Alec will admit it was his fault that these two people died, but that’s not what he’s being charged with,” Williams told jurors in his closing statement. “He’s being charged with what happened after. And what happened after was not criminal.”

After deliberating for about four hours Thursday, jurors sided with the prosecution.

The defendant did not take the witness stand.

Gajdos had no prior criminal history, according to court records. He faces roughly three years in prison under state sentencing guidelines.

Sentencing was set for May 10.

Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @GoldsteinStreet.