WSP trooper overlooks body in rear-ended van

BOTHELL, Wash. – A Washington State Patrol trooper didn’t notice a man’s body in a van that had been rear-ended, and it was 15 hours later when a tow truck driver found the corpse, officials said.

“We made a mistake, and we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Trooper Lance A. Ramsay said Monday.

The trooper has not been placed on leave, and Ramsay didn’t know how long he’d been with the patrol.

The episode began about 4 a.m. Sunday with a report that an abandoned Ford van had been struck by a Chevrolet Impala along Interstate 405 northeast of Seattle.

A trooper did an inventory, which generally consists of a check for valuables inside vehicles involved in collisions, Ramsay said.

About 15 hours later, Sky Valley Tow got a call from the brother of the van’s owner and a driver found the body of the van’s owner, David King, 52, company owner Scott Zachry said.

The brother said King had called to say the van had broken down and he was going to sleep in the back, “so we sent somebody into the yard to look in the vehicle,” Zachry said. “He was in a sleeping bag, and somebody looking into the vehicle wouldn’t necessarily see anything, really.”

Zachry said the van apparently was hit “very, very hard.”