MARYSVILLE — A Marysville woman accused of killing her husband had reportedly returned to the scene when firefighters first arrived and began to give him aid, according to new charging papers filed in Snohomish County Superior Court.
Diane Kay Thompson, 63, initially suggested to a Marysville firefighter giving CPR to her husband that maybe he had fallen off the roof.
She changed her story Sept. 4, when talking to a battalion chief with the fire department, telling him her husband had laid down in front of her car, according to the second-degree murder charges. She said she ran over something when she drove away, but didn’t know what it was, according to charging papers. She showed the battalion chief where she parked her car — outside her mother’s place a couple blocks away, hidden in some trees.
The firefighters couldn’t revive David Thompson. He was 64. They observed injuries to his forehead, left arm and chest that were consistent with being run over by a vehicle, deputy prosecutor Julie Ann Mohr wrote.
Diane Thompson’s arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 12.
One of the Thompsons’ daughters told Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies the couple had been arguing that night.
“They do this all the time,” she said, noting her father struggled with alcohol abuse and often verbally abused her mother. The two had been married 45 years and had five daughters. Their relationship deteriorated in the past decade, they wrote in court papers.
At some point the night of Sept. 4, the Thompsons took their argument outside. The daughter saw her mother leave in a Hyundai, and her father on the ground not moving.
The daughter asked her father if he was OK. He didn’t answer.
Immediately after, Diane Thompson reportedly called her daughter.
“Was that him I ran over ‘cause he laid right under the car?” she asked, according to charging papers.
Eventually, other family showed up to the house. Another daughter reported that her mother would often tell her, “I just wish that your father would just die,” and, “I wish he would just kill himself.” The daughter reported she moved out because of her parents’ relationship.
A deputy found Diane Thompson outside her mother’s house, “sitting in the grass, crying and taking deep breaths and heavy sighs, punctuated with sobs as she cried.” She was shaking. She told the deputy that her husband had been heavily intoxicated when she got home. He yelled about a metal detector that one of their daughters borrowed without his permission.
He wouldn’t stop arguing, Diane Thompson reportedly told police, so she walked out of the house, got in her car and locked the doors. He kept yelling and wouldn’t move out of the way, she reported. She honked her horn.
According to her account, she looked down at her phone and was trying to call one of her daughters for help. She couldn’t dial the number, though, because she was shaking. When she looked up again, she couldn’t see her husband, she told the deputy. She reported that he often stumbles and falls when he’s drunk.
Diane Thompson reported she took the opportunity to put the car in drive and leave. She felt a bump as she left. She reported she first figured her husband had placed something under the tire to try and stop her. She drove directly to her mother’s house and hid the car in the bushes, so it would be hidden from her husband, she claimed.
When she heard sirens, she ran back to the property to check on her husband.
The encounter was captured on a security cameras setup around the house, deputy prosecutor Mohr wrote. It reportedly shows David Thompson was still standing when the car hit him, and that the car continued to drive over him and leave, according to a witness who notified police of the footage. There was “no way” Diane Thompson didn’t see her husband, the witness reported.
Detectives later came back with a judge’s permission to collect the video. It had been erased. They suspected it was due to a power surge.
Deputies impounded Diane Thompson’s vehicle. They found what appeared to be two handprint smudges sliding down the front hood of the car. They also collected swabs from the rear of the vehicle. The samples were sent to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory and are still awaiting testing.
Detectives noted two sets of fresh tire marks in the driveway.
“Nowhere in the driveway are there any other acceleration marks,” Mohr wrote. “This indicates that on any typical day the drivers of any vehicles on this property do not push the accelerator down hard enough to cause the front tires to lose traction.”
Mohr continued: “On this particular day the suspect did need to use additional engine power and the cause of that was because she was running over … David Thompson, who was a large man.”
The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed David Thompson’s injuries were consistent with a tire going over his chest. An Everett District Court judge initially set Diane Thompson’s bail at $250,000, but the court agreed to lower it twice, down to $25,000. Diane Thompson was released from the jail after posting bond.
Prosecutors did not dispute keeping bail at $25,000, so long as the defendant continued to meet the conditions of her release. That includes not going back to her home in Marysville and not seeing any of her five daughters, who reportedly argued against the bail being lowered.
Diane Thompson had no other criminal history.
Zachariah Bryan: 425-339-3431; zbryan@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @zachariahtb.
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