EVERETT — An investigator with the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office has been fired after he was arrested for reportedly being drunk while recovering the bodies of four people killed in a Thanksgiving weekend crash.
Arleigh Marquis, 48, was terminated on Dec. 15, Christopher Schwarzen, a county spokesman, said Wednesday.
Marquis was fired for misconduct and violation of county rules, Schwarzen said, declining to provide more detail.
Washington State Patrol troopers have recommended that Marquis be charged with drunken driving. Results of their investigation have been forwarded to Sno- homish County prosecutors for review, trooper Brandon Lee said.
“That will be handled like any other case,” Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe said.
Marquis, who had worked for the county since May 2001, was summoned by troopers Nov. 29 to a fatal crash along Highway 9 in Marysville.
The crash was the deadliest suspected drunken-driving incident in recent county history. It claimed four lives, two Clearview couples who were neighbors and good friends.
A Snohomish man has been charged with four counts of vehicular homicide. Prosecutors allege he was drunk when he sped through a stop sign at Highway 9 and broadsided the Hyundai sedan carrying the four people.
The medical examiner’s investigator, Marquis, started his shift three hours before being called to the crash scene. He drove a county vehicle, officials have said.
A trooper detected alcohol on the investigator’s breath and pulled him aside. Marquis blew into a portable breath-testing device and submitted to another test at a nearby police station, police said. He was cited for drunken driving and given a ride home.
The criminal investigation into the crash was not compromised, police said. Other medical examiner investigators arrived and took over recovery of the crash victims.
A county probe into Marquis’ behavior at the medical examiner’s office was launched and he was placed on leave prior to his dismissal.
Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437, jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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