Washington State Patrol troopers arrested a 21-year-old Kent man on Thursday morning on an outstanding warrant for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in connection with an Oct. 24 crash in Burien that killed a SeaTac mother and injured her son.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Troopers arrested Manoj Siwakoti at his parents\u2019 home on the East Hill in Kent, according to a State Patrol media release. King County prosecutors had previously charged Siwakoti with vehicular homicide and assault but he failed to appear at a mandated court appearance. He is in custody in the county jail at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent with bail set at $25,000. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, March 17.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Lilliam L. Portillo, 41, was killed when her 1996 Toyota Corolla was hit while driving from northbound State Route 509 to westbound State Route 518 at about 3 p.m. According to charging papers, Siwakoti, driving a 2012 Nissan Rogue, failed to stop at a red light at the intersection while traveling eastbound on SR 518 and struck Portillo\u2019s vehicle. Portillo died at the scene. Her 10-year-old son suffered injuries to his liver, elbow and hand.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Traffic investigators estimated Siwakoti was driving about 50 mph in a 35 mph speed zone when he ran the red light and hit Portillo\u2019s car. He was driving his father\u2019s vehicle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Toxicology results showed that Siwakoti was impaired by prescription drugs, according to the State Patrol.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Siwakoti told troopers at the scene that he was just following his GPS.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI go through red light trying to make U-turn,\u201d he said to a trooper. \u201cI just did what GPS say.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But troopers noted that the driver appeared to be impaired from drugs because of his poor balance and coordination and his watery eyes. Siwakoti admitted that he has a prescription for anti-anxiety medication but said he hadn\u2019t taken any that day, according to charging papers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The driver agreed to a full drug recognition expert (DRE) exam at the State Patrol office in Tukwila. A DRE officer contacted him at the crash scene and noted obvious impairment from a central nervous system depressant. A blood test at Highline Medical Center showed that Siwakoti had fluoxetine in his system, a drug sold as Prozac, an antidepressant that may impair thinking and reactions or activities that require alertness, such as driving.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Witnesses to the accident included Portillo\u2019s husband, who was driving another vehicle right behind his wife. He saw his wife\u2019s Corolla pull out into the intersection and get hit by a Nissan Rogue. Another witness also saw the collision.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Troopers arrested Siwakoti at the scene for investigation of vehicular homicide and assault. He was booked into the county jail on Oct. 24 and released on Oct. 28.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington State Patrol troopers arrested a 21-year-old Kent man on Thursday morning on an outstanding warrant for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in connection with an Oct. 24 crash in Burien that killed a SeaTac mother and injured her son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":2789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2788"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}