Federal Way man pleads not guilty in crash that killed passenger

A 25-year-old Federal Way man pleaded not guilty Monday to crashing his car last week while fleeing Milton police, killing his passenger in the process.

Mac Robert Tappon is charged with second-degree murder, vehicular homicide, attempting to flee police, unlawful possession of a controlled substance and driving without a valid license.

Superior Court Judge Jack Nevin ordered Tappon jailed in lieu of $750,000 during his arraignment in Superior Court.

Prosecutors contend Tappon was driving a car that a Milton police officer spotted speeding about 4:30 a.m. Sept. 13. The officer followed the car and saw it stop in a driveway on 14th Avenue.

Shortly thereafter, the car began to drive away, accelerating to high speed when the officer activated his car’s overhead lights and gave chase, court records show.

The chase wound through Milton before ending when the driver, later identified as Tappon, lost control on Porter Way, sending the car flipping end over end numerous times before it came to rest on its roof.

“It seemed as if a bomb went off, and dust, dirt and debris was flying all over the roadway as well as in the trees and on each side of Porter Way and on the embankments,” the officer wrote in his report.

Police found Tappon still inside the car, but his passenger, Christine L. Pedro, 34, was thrown out and killed. Police found her body about 120 feet from where the car finally stopped, court records show.

Tappon was hospitalized after the wreck and only booked into jail over the weekend.

Investigators found a pistol, credit cards, tools, electronics, clothing and a bag containing about 10 grams of what field-tested positive for methamphetamine in and around the car, the records show.

Some of the credit cards and other documents did not belong to Tappon or Pedro, court records show, and an identity-theft detectives have been called in to investigate that part of the case.

This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Federal Way man pleads not guilty in crash that killed passenger."