A 21-year-old man was charged Monday in a February hit-and-run that killed two people and wounded another on Interstate 5 in Seattle.
King County prosecutors charged Antonio Lopez with two counts of vehicular homicide in the deaths of Skylar Thorton and Terrell Aaron, as well as single counts of vehicular assault and hit-and-run, according to probable cause documents.
Officials issued a temporary arrest warrant for Lopez, whose location was unknown Monday, according to court documents.
The crash that killed Thorton and Aaron occurred on the side of the interstate Feb. 26 after an earlier collision brought on by wintry weather, according to probable cause documents.
Thorton, who was driving a Chevrolet with Aaron as a passenger, had “tapped” a third man’s Mercedes-Benz near the interstate entrance ramp from the West Seattle Bridge, causing both to cars to spin uncontrollably into the area of the high-occupancy vehicle lane, according to court documents.
The roads were slushy and slick from continuous snowfall, prompting traffic to move slower than usual, according to court documents.
Lopez was driving too fast for the conditions when he slammed into the back of the Chevrolet, propelling it into the Mercedes and launching the third man, who was outside of his vehicle, onto the road, according to probable cause documents.
Thornton and Aaron died at the scene, court documents show. The third man was taken to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.
A witness told Lopez and his girlfriend to wait in the car, but they left the area while others attended to the injured people, according to court documents.
Lopez’s girlfriend told police later that morning she didn’t know where he was and had not been in contact with him since the crash, according to court documents. She told police she did not remember the crash because she had blacked out from drinking at a party before Lopez picked her up, documents say.
The fatal crash is the second Lopez is alleged to have caused. He previously pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run in a May 28, 2017, crash that killed a 21-year-old in Issaquah, according to court records. Lopez was 15 at the time of that crash.
As of Monday, he had not been assigned a lawyer in the case stemming from the February crash.