Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Two Die In Five-Car Crash Witnesses Say Speeding Pickup Ran Red Light, Then Launched Into Air After Hitting Cars

Two people were killed and five injured Saturday night when a pickup truck sped through a red light, causing a five-car accident at a busy Spokane intersection, police said.

A woman driving a silver Honda Accord died in her car. A second person was pronounced dead at a hospital. It was unclear which car that person was in.

Five people were taken to hospitals with injuries. Four of them were expected to be released late Saturday and early today, a police spokesman said.

The driver of a red-and-white Ford pickup was given sobriety tests and taken to a hospital for a blood-alcohol test.

James B. Barstad, 30, of Richland was then booked into jail on two counts of vehicular homicide, said police Sgt. Wally Cusick. He also was being held on three charges not related to the accident.

The names of the victims were not released.

Witnesses said the truck sped west on Mission and through a red light at Hamilton about 7:45 p.m.

The truck slammed into a red Ford four-door sedan and a dark-blue Honda Accord, became airborne, clipped the overhead traffic light and slammed down on the silver Honda, witnesses said.

The truck rolled two or three times and came to a stop straddling a cement median on Mission, west of Hamilton. Its rear wheels and axle were ripped off and lay in the intersection.

The impact also forced the red sedan to slide sideways into a dark-blue Ford Tempo that was waiting at the light to go east on Mission.

“He went over the top of a car,” said Shelly Tombari, who was gardening in front of her home on Mission with her three children when the accident happened. “Wheels went flying and I screamed at my oldest son to call 911.”

Marvin Wheeler was stopping his car for the red light on Mission when the pickup zoomed past him and into the intersection. Wheeler said the pickup was nearly a block behind him when the light changed.

Wheeler and other witnesses estimated the pickup was traveling about 50 mph when it entered the intersection.

A plastic storage chest filled with tools lay in the middle of the road, nearly a block from the impact.

“When the light turned red, he just gunned it instead of slowing down,” Wheeler said.

He rushed to nearby Safeway to call 911 and returned to see paramedics performing CPR on a woman in the red Ford car.

Several people hurried from neighboring businesses and other cars to help the people in the silver Honda, which came to a rest in the grass in front of the Magic Touch Carwash.

Firefighters used the Jaws of Life to cut a young woman out of that car. The woman was placed on a backboard and loaded into one of three waiting ambulances.

The driver’s door of the Honda absorbed most of the blow, killing a girl who witnesses said was in her late teens or early 20s.

“I tried to talk to her a little bit,” said witness Rich More. “I think she might have already been dead.”

More was in a pickup behind the silver Honda when the accident happened. Afterward, he sat quietly on a cement parking barrier with his head buried in his hands.

“It could have been us,” More said. “That changed my life right there. I’m afraid to drive.”

Meanwhile, witnesses said Barstad paced in the street, yelling and swearing at people who tried to help.

“We walked over there and you could smell the alcohol,” said Ronna Davis, who saw the accident from her seat at Taco Time.

Minutes after the accident, more than 100 onlookers crowded the intersection.

“Ladies and gentlemen, everything this side of this is a crime scene,” a police sergeant said, pointing to the silver Honda. Officers strung yellow police tape to block off the intersection in front of the sergeant.

Moments later, a couple hurdled the tape and yelled, “That’s our daughter!” before being reunited with their 10-year-old and a family friend who were in the accident.

Charles and Donya Kemp comforted their daughter, Heather Whitaker, who sat watching officer Rob Boothe conduct field sobriety tests on Barstad. She suffered a bruised shoulder, but was OK, they said.

Bandages covered cuts and scrapes on Barstad’s knees as he was loaded into the back of a patrol car. He slumped forward in the back seat. His head, which was topped with red and blue hair, rested in his right hand.

Barstad also faces charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, and second-degree malicious mischief and fourth-degree domestic violence for an incident earlier Saturday.

Angry onlookers yelled at Barstad as police drove him to jail.

Sara Emerson, 23, watched from the corner. She was stopping her Ford Tempo on Mission when Barstad’s truck forced the red car to plow into her car.

“I let off the gas to go and boom, there was glass flying everywhere,” Emerson said.

She remembered looking helplessly at the three unconscious people in the car next to her crumpled car.

“I honestly didn’t know what to do,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color)