Kirkland crash kills two in car, driver arrested

KIRKLAND — Two people died in a one-car crash early Friday, and the driver was under investigation for vehicular homicide, police said.

All three were in a car that missed a curve on Lakeview Drive, tumbled down an embankment, overturned and landed in an apartment parking lot about 2:20 a.m.

Two men in their early 20s were thrown from the vehicle and were pronounced dead at the scene, and a third about the same age was found trapped behind the steering wheel, his life apparently saved by an airbag, police said.

The driver was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Yakima

Teen gets 7 1/2 years for beating toddler to death: A 16-year-old boy has been sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for the fatal beating of the 15-month-old child of a girl he thought had spurned him. Esteban Leon, initially charged as an adult with second-degree murder, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter Thursday in an agreement with prosecutors and was promptly sentenced. He did not dispute the account of investigators, who said he flew into a drug- and alcohol-fueled rage Oct. 11 while alone in a room with Luis Acevedo. Feeling rejected by the little boy’s 17-year-old mother and angered by the child’s crying, he hit him, then choked him and finally thumped him so hard on the chest that the boy stopped breathing. The toddler was pronounced dead after being rushed to a hospital, where Leon admitted the beating and was arrested.

Olympia

Out-of-state license not enough: A person using an out-of-state driver’s license will now need additional documentation to obtain a Washington driver’s license, the state says. The Department of Licensing announced Friday that it would no longer accept out-of-state identification alone. A person seeking a Washington license will have to offer additional supporting documents, which could include a passport or a tribal enrollment card.

Seattle

Man arrested in fatal stabbing: A man was stabbed to death in what investigators said may have been a drug deal that went bad, and another man has been arrested. The arrest was made late Wednesday outside a Labor Ready office after police received a tip. The 46-year-old man who was arrested lived in the building where the 29-year-old victim was found dead in the lobby. He had been stabbed once in the abdomen. After the arrest, the man allegedly confessed to the killing and was jailed for investigation of homicide with bail set at $500,000, officer Duane Fish said.

Pasco

Man ordered to pay restitution in trooper’s death: A man who killed a Washington state trooper in 1999 was ordered Friday to pay the state nearly $94,000 in restitution. But it’s unlikely Nicolas Solorio Vasquez will be able to pay the money. "I can’t imagine it," said Samuel Swanberg, one of Vasquez’s lawyers. "He’s locked up for the rest of his life." Vasquez pleaded guilty to aggravated first-degree murder last year in the death of Washington State Patrol Trooper Jim Saunders, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Pasco. Under the order signed by Franklin County Superior Court Judge Dennis Yule, Vasquez is to make payments to the state Department of Labor, which is handling some of the death benefits for Saunders’ widow and their two children.

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