EVERETT — Medical staff struggled to draw blood from a suspect in a fatal crash, because his veins had been overused for drug injection, according to new charges of vehicular homicide.
So they had to search for a vein in his neck.
Tests came back positive for morphine and methamphetamine in Matias Trefault’s blood, but charging papers do not specify the amount of each drug in his system.
A Subaru driven by Trefault collided head-on with a Toyota Corolla at 5:55 a.m. March 16, when his car crossed the center turn lane in the 10800 block of Evergreen Way.
The crash killed Reynold Joel, of the Everett area. He was 27.
Friends of Trefault, 19, of Kirkland, told police the group had been heading to a Motel 6. Trefault reported to officers he’d looked down for a moment at his phone, mounted on a vent on the dashboard. He looked up and suddenly saw the oncoming Toyota.
A passenger in the Subaru suffered minor injuries.
Squares of folded tinfoil were found in Trefault’s pockets, according to the charges. Foil is often used to smoke heroin. The driver reportedly told police he hadn’t used heroin in days.
Police noted his speech was slow and slurred. Officers saw a jar hanging from Trefault’s necklace, with a clear rock inside. It field-tested positive for meth, court papers say.
Trefault fell asleep in a holding cell while police applied for a search warrant. Once a judge gave them authority to draw his blood, the defendant swayed as he stood, like he would fall over, the charges say. Staff could not find a good vein in his arm because of frequent intravenous drug use.
In the bloodstream, morphine is often a product of a metabolized opioid, like heroin.
The deputy prosecutor, Tobin Darrow, noted in the charges that when meth users are coming down or “crashing” from a high, they can show signs of intense fatigue and inattentiveness.
A judge set Trefault’s bond at $100,000 in March. According to the Snohomish County Jail, he was transferred to the Kirkland jail in April. He’s no longer on the jail roster there, and a man who answered the phone at the Kirkland jail Friday told a reporter to put in a public records request, to find out when he’d been released.
A summons was mailed to a Kirkland address this week, telling Trefault that his arraignment would be held on Sept. 5.
In two other recent deadly crashes in Snohomish County, drivers were charged with vehicular homicide while under the influence of meth.
One of those cases ended in acquittal.
In the other, the driver was handed a sentence that would’ve been far below the standard, if he’d been found guilty of vehicular homicide while under the influence, as originally charged. Instead he was convicted of vehicular homicide while showing disregard for the safety of others.
Prosecutors have found it more difficult to prove how impaired someone was by meth, as opposed to, say, alcohol.
Meth’s effect on driving hasn’t been studied with the same rigor, and there is no clear defined legal limit for the drug, like there is for alcohol or the active ingredient marijuana.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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