A man died after being run over at Spanaway drive-thru. Plea agreement reached in case
A 23-year-old man who fatally ran over a stranger in the drive-thru of a Spanaway fast food restaurant in February pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder.
In court documents, investigators said the killing appeared to be a case of mistaken identity. Pierce County Sheriff’s Department detectives theorized that Christian Dressel mistook the victim’s white truck for a different vehicle he saw near his girlfriend’s residence, then followed it and confronted a man in the car.
Dressel’s conviction carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, but defendants tried in similar cases are typically sentenced to between about 12-20 years. Prosecutors recommended he be sentenced to 20 years, four months in prison, court records show.
He is to be sentenced Oct. 5
Dressel pleaded guilty to killing David James Brown, 68, who was at the drive-thru in the 20500 block of Mountain Highway East with his wife Feb. 26 to order dinner, according to the declaration for determination of probable cause. They ordered at about 6:30 p.m., and Dressel pulled in about a minute later in a Chrysler Pacifica, records state.
Surveillance footage showed Dressel strike the back of the couple’s truck three times. Brown got out to speak with Dressel, who ran over the man two to three times before speeding off, according to the probable cause document. Brown was pronounced dead at the scene.
The defendant’s mother called 911 two days later to turn in her son, an deputies arrested Dressel on March 1.
Dressel initially told detectives he didn’t mean to hit Brown and unknowingly backed over him, records state. He allegedly changed his statement several times over the course of his hours-long interview with detectives.
