A 38-year-old Snohomish man was charged Monday with vehicular homicide after his pickup allegedly plowed into the rear of a disabled car in December 2002, causing a fiery I-5 crash that killed a man.
Douglas Brian Fink was charged after a long State Patrol investigation into the crash that killed Jeffrey O. Bundy, 21, of Marysville.
Bundy’s car stalled and was partly in the outside travel lane at the time of the collision, said Joan Cavagnaro, deputy prosecutor. Fink had been drinking and registered nearly twice the legal blood-alcohol limit, she alleged in charging papers.
Fink told troopers his southbound pickup came around a curve, and he suddenly saw the disabled car partly in his lane just north of the Snohomish River Bridge. He claimed the lights of Bundy’s 1965 Chevrolet sedan were not on, and he didn’t have time to swerve around the car.
Cavagnaro said Bundy had purchased the car a week before, and it had carburetor problems. He had been following his girlfriend south on the freeway when he pulled over to the shoulder with car problems.
She saw him stop and his girlfriend got off at the next exit in Everett. She got back on the freeway to Marysville, and saw him at the same location with his lights on, Cavagnaro said.
By the time she completed the trip to Marysville and retraced her travels south on the freeway, Bundy had moved the car. She continued another mile and drove upon the crash, seeing the two vehicles engulfed in flames near the freeway bridge.
Troopers tested the vehicle’s lights and determined that they had been on at the time of the crash, Cavagnaro said. She said troopers determined that his car extended less than two feet into the outside lane. The lane at that point is 11 feet wide, plenty of distance for Fink’s pickup to pass without going into another lane, Cavagnaro said.
She also said his truck should have had plenty of time to stop with a normal response time.
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