Confusion delayed woman’s rescue

SEATTLE – As Tanya Rider lay trapped and near death in the wreckage of her sport utility vehicle, a misunderstanding over her bank account hindered investigators for two days in the search for the woman, according to a case file released Monday.

The King County sheriff’s office released the 30-plus pages of police reports in part to respond to criticism from Rider’s husband, Tom, that the office should have done more, sooner, to find her. Rider, 33, was trapped for more than a week before she was rescued last Thursday by searchers using cell phone technology to track down her mangled SUV in a ravine southeast of Seattle. She remained in serious condition Monday at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

The case file says that an investigator was initially told – by Tom Rider and by Tanya Rider’s bank, USAA Federal Savings Bank – that the missing Maple Valley woman was the only person who had access to her account. Because there had been recent transfers and withdrawals, investigators assumed she had just run off.

“If she’s accessing her account, she’s most likely missing voluntarily,” sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said Monday. “The bank told us she was the only one who had access to her account. Why would we question that?”

The account activity prevented the sheriff’s office from having probable cause to obtain cell phone records that could narrow down her location, Urquhart said. Verizon Communications Inc. refuses to turn over such records unless a police agency promises to provide a search warrant within 24 hours.

Investigators pursued other leads until the misunderstanding was cleared up last Wednesday – six days after Rider was last seen Sept. 20, leaving her job at a suburban Bellevue store. The file says that on Sept. 26, Tom Rider said that he in fact did have access to the account and that he had made the transfers and withdrawals. If he left officers with a different impression, he said, it must have been because he was “so exhausted.”

Paul Berry, a spokesman for the San Antonio, Texas-based bank, said he had no information about the bank’s contacts with the investigators.

“Once we realized it was not her activity on the account, that changed the complexion of the case,” Urquhart said.

On the morning of Sept. 27, detectives called Verizon and asked for the records as a matter of urgency, promising to provide a search warrant when one was obtained. At 12:30 p.m. that day, the company turned them over, noting that the last call to Rider’s cell phone was routed through a cellular tower on 203rd Avenue Southwest and that Rider could be within a three- to five-mile radius of that tower.

Rider took State Highway 169, the Maple Valley highway, to and from work. Detectives searched a section of it within that radius, and found her car less than two hours later.

Tom Rider disputes the story in the sheriff’s file, insisting he never told detectives that his wife was the only person with access to the account. In fact, he said, he told them his wife had left her checkbooks and her debit card at home, and that the only account they needed to monitor was a Nordstrom Visa card.

“I can’t fault them too much because they did save her life,” he said Monday. “I don’t want to sue them. They got confused. Maybe I spoke too fast. I just want them to review the tapes and retract that statement.”

Rider said his wife, who has battled depression, has no recollection of the crash, but that she believes she called 911. The sheriff’s office said Monday there is no record of such a call.