He fled fatal crash in Tacoma. Police say they caught up to him when he wrecked again
A 25-year-old man accused of speeding past a stop sign in Tacoma earlier this month and crashing into a car, killing its driver, has been arrested in southwest Washington following a serious collision there.
Pierce County prosecutors have charged Tyler Townsend with vehicular homicide, theft of a motor vehicle, failure to remain at an accident resulting in death and unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle in the Tacoma crash. An arraignment date has not yet been set.
According to charging documents filed in Pierce County Superior Court on Tuesday, Townsend was going about 62 mph on a 25 mph street when the stolen car he was driving collided with a minivan, trapping 31-year-old Janessa Sjogren under her vehicle and flipping the car he was driving. Records state Sjogren suffered a “catastrophic” head injury and was pronounced dead on the scene.
When the Pierce County medical examiner identified Sjogren, her hometown was listed as unknown. Records state her vehicle had Texas plates.
The collision occurred at the intersection of East 34th and D Streets at about 3:30 p.m. According to the declaration for determination of probable cause, Townsend was driving a stolen Kia Sportage south on D Street when he ran the stop sign and hit the front driver’s side of Sjogren’s minivan. According to data obtained from the Kia, Townsend never slowed down before the collision, appearing to have not even perceived the other driver, court records show.
The Kia ended up on its roof in a nearby home’s lawn. Witnesses reported seeing a man crawl out of the front passenger window and run away, according to the probable cause document. Police recovered a cell phone and a single Adidas shoe from the car.
Detectives began tying Townsend to the collision two weeks later when an anonymous tipster reported he was the hit-and-run driver. Records state that the tipster said Townsend had recently been involved in a collision in Cowlitz County and was in the hospital in Vancouver, Washington.
After contacting the Washington State Patrol about the Cowlitz County crash and learning of his arrest, Tacoma detectives obtained a search warrant to swab for DNA and went to see Townsend.
At the hospital, the defendant reportedly became emotional after learning that the person he had collided with in Tacoma died. According to the probable cause document, the defendant said he was living in Graham at the time but was driving to an apartment near East McKinley and 35th Street that day. A friend was letting him use the address for his check-ins with a Department of Corrections officer. Townsend reportedly told investigators that he struggled with a methamphetamine addiction.
Townsend told detectives investigating the Tacoma incident that he didn’t know the city very well, and that he wanted Sjogren’s family to know the collision wasn’t intentional, court records show.
Detectives conducted DNA swabs, which were submitted to a WSP crime lab to compare with evidence recovered from the Tacoma crash. Results are pending.
Townsend was arrested in Cowlitz County after he fled a crash in a stolen vehicle on Interstate 5, records say.
