Family reels after woman killed by suspected DUI forklift driver in Seattle

SEATTLE – The mangled car on the news Tuesday looked familiar to Chayan Trujillo.

She quickly suspected that it may have been her beloved aunt, Jessica Valdez, who was killed inside. When she zoomed in on the license plates, her fears were confirmed, dealing a devastating blow to a family that centered around Valdez, a mother of three in Tukwila.

“She was the glue that held our family together,” Trujillo, 17, said Thursday.

Valdez died Tuesday after a man, who police suspect was under the influence of “intoxicants,” drove a forklift onto Aurora Avenue North near North 96th Street at about 3:30 p.m. The forklift caused both Valdez’s SUV, which was being driven by a 27-year-old man, and a landscape truck to crash. The driver of the SUV, who hasn’t been identified, and the driver of the truck both survived. Valdez did not.

The average forklift weighs about 4.5 tons, more than twice that of an average-sized car.

The man driving the forklift did not require hospitalization, according to the Seattle Police Department. Officers suspected he was impaired and booked him into jail.

A King County District Court judge found probable cause Thursday to hold the man on investigation of vehicular homicide and set bail at $300,000, said Casey McNerthney, a spokesperson for King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

The probable cause statement outlining the Seattle Police Department’s case against the man says responding officers smelled alcohol coming from the man, who works at a nearby metal scrap yard, and saw bottles of vodka near him. One bottle appeared to be full and the other had less than half of the contents in it, the statement says.

Police said the suspect’s blood alcohol level was 0.203%, more than twice the legal limit in Washington.

Valdez, 25, had three kids, ages 8, 6 and 2. She worked for T-Mobile for the past year, said Trujillo, a job she loved because it gave her a chance to be helpful.

“She was an amazing soul,” Trujillo said. “She always looked out for everybody and helped everyone as much as she could.”

They were a close family, with aunts, uncles and cousins all living near each other in Tukwila and Burien. They would go on road trips together, take hikes on Mount Rainier and watch the sunset at Alki Beach. Trujillo and Valdez would speak almost daily, getting together when they could, FaceTiming or texting when they couldn’t.

“We always made time for each other,” Trujillo said.

Latrice McGhee remembers winning tickets to a Beyoncé concert with Valdez in 2009. The two middle school best friends called into a radio station on six different phones and whooped and hollered when they got through and correctly identified the song on air.

“When you think of a best friend, she was a best friend,” McGhee said Thursday. “She was supportive. She was there for you. And that’s how she was towards her family and friends. And she was just a selfless person all the time.”

While the nature of Valdez’s death involving a forklift is out of the ordinary, its location is not. Aurora Avenue North is the city’s least-safe street. In the past five years, nearly 20 people have died and around 50 have been seriously injured on the road.

Some help is on the way. In 2022, state lawmakers budgeted $50 million to begin rebuilding the stretch of Aurora between North 90th and North 105th streets, which includes the site of Valdez’s crash. The vision is one of a calmer, more pedestrian-friendly Aurora, with more sidewalks, pedestrian crossings and bus lanes, and lower speeds.

At seven lanes and more than 30,000 vehicles a day, it will be a controversial and complicated overhaul. But for Seattle to have any hope of achieving its goal of zero traffic deaths by 2030, it must first address the dangers of Aurora.

Meanwhile, 745 people are believed to have died on Washington roads last year, the highest in more than 30 years. Impairment has played an increasing role and lawmakers are considering lowering the blood alcohol limit for drivers from 0.08% to 0.05%.

Trujillo’s family is still reeling from the news of Valdez’s death, struggling to figure out what to do next. For now, their energy is focused on giving her a proper service, one worthy of the person she was.

Her kids are staying with their father and grandmother, said Trujillo, struggling to comprehend what happened.

As for the forklift driver, Trujillo is dumbstruck. She’d like to see him jailed.

“He doesn’t understand what he’s done to our family and the pain he has caused,” she said.

Her family hosted a vigil for Valdez on Friday evening near where the collision occurred.