SKYWAY, Wash. — A 74-year-old man accused in a deadly hit-and-run in Skyway last week had allegedly drank a six-pack of beer in less than an hour before he sped off and hit a parked vehicle, which killed a woman.
According to court documents, 74-year-old Daniel Hayes was in his RV in the parking lot of Grocery Outlet around 9 p.m. when a store employee heard him scream for help.
The employee said that Hayes had fallen on the floor area of the front seats of his RV. The employee asked if Hayes needed medical attention, but Hayes declined and instead asked for a beer, according to court documents.
The clerk obliged, but said that Hayes couldn’t drink that in the parking lot and needed to go across the street to the shoulder of the road.
When Hayes was later arrested, he told police that he had the entire six pack, according to docs.
Less than an hour later, Hayes is seen pulling off the shoulder and began “careening at a high rate of speed” down the street.
He then hit two parked cars, court docs say. One of those cars, a pickup truck, was hit so violently that it launched the truck forward, which then slammed into a woman standing in her driveway on the sidewalk.
The 45-year-old was pinned and pronounced dead at the scene.
Hayes, however, did not stop after impact, court documents said. According to court docs, he reversed and then slammed into another parked vehicle before pulling back on the roadway and speeding away. He was seen making a U-Turn and hitting an occupied vehicle and continued speeding off.
It’s unclear if the person in that vehicle was hurt.
Around 10 p.m. that night, shortly after the crash, a deputy saw his RV and went to check on the driver as it looked like he was falling asleep. At the time, the deputy did not know the RV was wanted in connection to the crash.
After learning police were looking for the vehicle, the deputy returned at 10:30 p.m. only to find that the RV was gone.
An alert for law enforcement and the public was put out to be on the lookout for the RV.
It didn’t take long.
Hayes was stopped by police the following day around 3:15 p.m. on I-90 in North Bend. According to court documents, he was half driving on the shoulder and half in the lanes.
Police arrested him in connection to the crash.
During his police interview, he allegedly told officers that he was so drunk that he didn’t remember the crash. However, he also asked if “she” [the victim] was okay before officers told him that she had died. He also allegedly told officers that he was planning on leaving for Montana, docs said.
Hayes has been charged with vehicular homicide, felony hit-and-run, reckless driving and driving without a valid license.
Bail be set at $250,000.
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