WOODLAND — Witnesses to a fatal Yolo County crash all gave similar accounts, describing a speeding car darting erratically around multiple vehicles before rear-ending a truck carrying a Woodland couple and their four young children.
“It was up there like a flash,” one motorist told California Highway Patrol Officer Dustin Range, who testified Monday in Yolo Superior Court about the collision on northbound Interstate 5 just west of the Sacramento River.
Another witness said the car, a BMW 325i, was “hauling ass.” A third person recalled that it squeezed between her car and a big rig as it passed them on the two-lane highway.
At the wheel, according to Range, was Sacramento resident Shane Michael Carlyle, who is facing gross vehicular manslaughter and multiple other charges in connection with the June 18 crash. He was ordered to stand trial on all counts following Monday’s preliminary hearing before Judge Timothy Fall.
The horrified witnesses watched as the BMW struck the rear of a Nissan Titan pickup, catapulting the truck off the freeway and down an embankment, where it rolled multiple times along the way.
Inside, 5-year-old Luis Figueroa Jr. sustained fatal injuries, from which he died after being transported to the UC Davis Medical Center. His sisters — ages 5, 6 and 10 — also were badly hurt, with first responders finding multiple bones protruding from Luis’ twin sister’s body.
“She was all contorted,” Range testified, adding that one witness “couldn’t recognize her as even being a person.”
The officer said he arrived on scene to find ambulance personnel treating the injured parties, including Carlyle, who despite being semi-conscious was able to provide his name, date of birth and other identifying details.
“He told me he’d been driving on I-5 about 80 mph” while en route to his girlfriend’s house in Dunnigan, Range recalled. “He saw a white light, and he didn’t remember anything after that.”
Asked whether he had taken any illicit drugs, Carlyle said he’d smoked methamphetamine two weeks earlier, though during a subsequent hospital interview said the drug use had occurred two days prior, according to Range.
Noting Carlyle’s slow, slurred speech and callused fingers — a possible sign of meth-pipe use — Range said he concluded Carlyle was under the influence of a controlled substance “where he should not be operating a motor vehicle.”
A blood sample taken from Carlyle at the hospital about an hour after the crash showed a methamphetamine level of 418 nanograms per milliliter, “a higher amount than normal,” CHP Officer Lamberto Montano testified.
Montano also noted that therapeutic levels of methamphetamine fall in the 10 to 50 ng/mL range, and that “anything above that is somebody that’s using it for other than therapeutic or medicinal ranges.”
Carlyle’s public defender, John Sage, made several attempts to discredit the drug testimony. He pointed out that his client works as a welder, asking Range whether that could account for the calluses on his hands, and questioned whether Carlyle’s impaired speech could have been the result of a head injury.
Under Sage’s cross-examination, Range also acknowledged that Luis Figueroa Jr. and his twin were sharing a single seatbelt in the rear seat when the crash occurred, and that neither was secured in a child safety seat.
In addition to charges stemming from the fatal crash, Carlyle was held to answer on other counts related to three separate arrests that occurred in Yolo County in the week prior to the collision, including vandalism, drug possession and driving with a suspended license. He also was on probation for prior crimes in Sacramento County.
Carlyle, 34, is due back in court July 22 for arraignment on all charges. He has previously pleaded not guilty to the allegations.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene