Suspect in crash that killed two on Interstate 70 expresses confusion over license status
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
An El Salvadoran charged with manslaughter in a Boone County double fatal crash told a judge Thursday that he thought his expired license was still valid.
Walter Montejo, who is from California but came to the U.S. on a work visa, according to a probable cause statement, was charged on Wednesday with two counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter, one count of second-degree assault and misdemeanor driving while revoked.
He appeared by video from the Boone County Jail, where he is being held without bond. Montejo was in jail clothes and required the help of an interpreter. His next court is set for Monday.
A woman from Tennessee and another from Colorado were killed when a tractor-trailer crossed the median and slammed into a U-Haul on Monday in Columbia.
The Columbia Police Department identified the women Tuesday as Cindy Helms, 54, of Rockwood, Tennessee, and Melvina Colin, 84, of Broomfield, Colorado. Helms was driving eastbound in the U-Haul truck towing a vehicle and Colin was her passenger, CPD says.
The crash involved a tractor-trailer driven by Montejo, police say. His vehicle crossed the centerline after a collision in the westbound lanes and hit the U-Haul head-on in the eastbound lanes.
A fire broke out after the collision.
The crash shut down eastbound I-70 and part of westbound I-70 for several hours Monday.
Helms was taken to a hospital where she died. Colin was pronounced dead at the scene. Montejo was hospitalized with moderate injuries.
Crash Investigation Process
Retired Lee’s Summit Police Seargent Roger Brenner says that it is not uncommon for a tractor-trailer to go over a median, after helping do accident reconstruction during his 22 years in law enforcement.
“A semi-truck has a very high center of gravity. So and they have a lot of weight. So once you get that weight moving and you hit something, it's either got to stop or go somewhere So it's either going to redirect or go up over the top because semis are so heavy and so top heavy. It's not that uncommon for them to go over those dividers,” Brenner explained. “If I'm driving down the highway and I and I'm going to pass a semi, I don't waste time doing it, I get around because, you know, those things are they're heavy. If they if they blow a tire or if they're not paying attention or whatever, it can just end badly.”
Brenner says that an investigation into a seven-car crash, like Monday’s incident, can be complicated and take several hours. The first step is providing medical attention and then locating witnesses, a task he called a “top priority” for investigators.
“Witnesses can get away, go a different direction or whatever. So you want to identify those folks and get their statements and their contact information so you can come back to them later if you have some other questions from there,” Brenner explained. “From there you just start looking at the physical evidence which can involve what they call shakedowns. So any time two vehicles come in contact with each other, it's going to knock any loose dirt off or rust or plastic body panels or whatever, those are going to come off and fall wherever that impact happened. So that's going to give you an idea of maybe where the chain of events started.
You're going to be looking at skid marks. You can look at paint transfer and damage on vehicles and that can help you maybe figure out what position the vehicles were in when they came together and what part of the vehicle hit another part of a vehicle. And then, of course, skid marks from the skid marks. You generally kind of start with the resting point of all the vehicles and work your way backward and just kind of follow those skid marks and that can kind of help you narrow down that chain of events.”
After watching dashcam footage of the crash, Brenner believes that the two women driving the U-Haul had little time to react.
“What I did notice is that the U-Haul was in the right lane when something happens like that front, you got two options. You can either try to stop or you can steer away from it,” Brenner said. “I couldn't tell if there were any brake lights on there. But when they when they hit when the semi hit them, they were still right there in the center of that right lane. So I don't know if it just happened too fast for them. They didn't see it coming or just didn't know how to react.”
MoDOT’s Improve I-70 program director Eric Kopinsky told ABC 17 in an email that oftentimes times when a crash occurs on I-70 both lanes of the interstate are closed while first responders try to clear the crash. He believes that the project to add a third lane will help first responders get to a crash location more efficiently.
