A 37-year-old Connell woman was killed and three of her passengers were rushed to hospital with serious injuries on Tuesday evening, November 10, after a three-vehicle crash on State Route 17 at Booker Road in Franklin County, about 11 miles north of Mesa, Washington. The Washington State Patrol (WSP) says a Kennewick driver whose pickup clipped the woman's car was booked into jail on a vehicular homicide charge after troopers concluded that drugs or alcohol caused the crash.
Source: KEYW (Washington State Patrol)
The woman who died at the scene was identified by the State Patrol as Jessica R. Zarate, 37, of Connell. She was driving a 2018 Chevrolet Malibu southbound on SR-17 when, troopers say, a 2015 Toyota Tundra driven by John Daniel Reiss, 61, of Kennewick clipped her car near Booker Road at about 6:40 p.m. The impact pushed the Malibu into the path of a northbound 2004 Nissan Sentra driven by Edgar Garcia Quirino, 28, of Othello, and the two cars collided.
How the crash unfolded
Franklin County dispatch traffic from the same evening independently matches the troopers' account of the scene: dispatchers reported a blocking, injury crash at Highway 17 and Booker Road involving a Toyota Tundra that had hit two other vehicles, with multiple patients and a driver who may have been impaired and had been seen swerving before the collision.
Source: CrimeRadar (Franklin County dispatch audio)
Zarate was pronounced dead at the scene. Three passengers travelling in her Malibu were taken to hospital with serious injuries; authorities have not released their names, and no identifying details about them have been published. Reiss was not injured in the crash, according to the State Patrol's account reported by KEYW. The condition of the Sentra's driver was not detailed in the initial WSP report.
Troopers said the investigation established that drugs and/or alcohol were the cause of the crash. Reiss was booked late Tuesday night into the Franklin County Jail on a charge of vehicular homicide. The charge is an allegation: Reiss has not been convicted of any offence in this case and is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty in court.
A corridor Franklin County has worried about before
State Route 17 is one of the Columbia Basin's working highways: a mostly rural, two-lane corridor carrying farm traffic, freight and commuters between the Tri-Cities area, Mesa, Othello and Moses Lake. In the dark winter months, much of that traffic moves at dusk or in full darkness, and the corridor's long straight stretches meet county roads like Booker Road at open rural intersections. Truck drivers and farm vehicles use the route heavily — including many Punjabi-American truckers and agricultural workers who live and work across eastern Washington.
The safety of this corridor is not a new concern. Franklin County commissioners have previously described repeated serious and deadly crashes on Highways 395 and 17 and discussed convening state legislators and agencies to pursue safety fixes, including a proposal to designate an especially dangerous stretch as an 'accident zone' with enhanced penalties. Tuesday's crash, at another rural SR-17 intersection, is the latest fatal collision on the same corridor.
What Washington law says
In Washington, vehicular homicide is the charge prosecutors use when a driver's impairment or reckless driving is alleged to have caused another person's death. It is a felony, and a case built on impairment usually turns on toxicology results, the collision reconstruction and witness accounts of how the vehicles were being driven before impact — which is why troopers' note that the Tundra had reportedly been seen swerving matters to the investigation.
The vehicular homicide booking is a charge filed on the State Patrol's findings so far. The full collision report, toxicology and any charging decision by Franklin County prosecutors are still to come, and the driver is presumed innocent in court.
What happens next
The Washington State Patrol's investigation into the crash is continuing, and Reiss is expected to face his first court proceedings in Franklin County, where prosecutors will decide the formal charges. The State Patrol has not yet released a full written collision report, the passengers' conditions, or any further detail about the Sentra driver. For drivers on SR-17 and the Basin's other rural corridors, the crash is a grim reminder of the two risks troopers cite again and again on these roads: impairment, and the long, dark, high-speed stretches where a single clip at an intersection can turn into a multi-vehicle fatal crash in seconds.