COUPEVILLE — Prosecutors here have charged a Langley woman, 18, with vehicular homicide in connection with a crash that took the lives of three young men on Saturday.
Kaylea F. Souza was being held Tuesday at Island County Jail. Bail was set at $150,000.
Souza was reportedly behind the wheel of a 2003 Chevy Malibu that veered off Wilkinson Road, south of Langley, just after midnight on Saturday morning. The car struck a tree and caught fire.
Passersby pulled Souza from the car, but three passengers died at the scene.
They were identified Tuesday as Marcel “Mick” Poynter, 20, Robert Knight, 22, and Charles Porter, 19.
Knight and Poynter were from Whidbey Island. Porter was from Palmdale, Calif.
After the crash, Souza allegedly told troopers that she’d drank a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor earlier that evening, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in Island County Superior Court.
She reportedly failed a field sobriety test, and investigators are awaiting the results of a blood test.
Souza has no known criminal history. She is set to be arraigned on Nov. 28.
The crash deaths stunned the community, prosecutors said in a statement released Tuesday.
“These young men were well-known and well-liked,” it said. “We are saddened and bewildered as we try to make sense of such a senseless act.”
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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