PUYALLUP, Wash. -- Domestic violence, road rage, and a gun are all being investigated as possible factors in an overnight four-car crash that injured three people and sent one man to jail for possible attempted murder.
911 calls came in right before midnight Wednesday that a maroon Honda Odyssey minivan was chasing a silver Honda Civic southbound along State Route 161 south of Puyallup.
The Civic ran a red light at 168th St. E, smashing into two other cars that were legally in the intersection. The male driver and female passenger in the Civic both sustained serious injuries, along with the woman behind the wheel of a Toyota Scion.
Neighbors say the driver of the minivan and the female Civic passenger are husband and wife.
And Arthur Devonne, III, said, despite his son "Trey" driving, the Civic actually belongs to the woman, a 31-year old who has visited his home at least twice in the past week.
"A young lady approached my door," he recounted one incident. "I asked her who she was, she said she was here for Trey. I walked up my steps, told him, and that's the last I seen them." Devonne added that the two left together in the Civic around 7pm Tuesday.
Devonne said his son called him on the phone from Tacoma General Hospital, where he and the female passenger were taken after the crash.
"He told me that he had a broken leg," said Arthur Devone, III, the father of the Civic driver. "And he told me he was [grazed] in the head" by a bullet.
Investigators would not confirm the gunshot injury claim, nor if a gun was recovered at the scene, but said they are trying to figure out if an apparent bullet hole in the back of the Civic is related to the road rage incident.
"This is going to be a very complex, dynamic investigation," said Trooper J.J. Gundermann, Washington State Patrol.
Neighbors of the Puyallup couple were shocked to learn there may have been problems next door.
"It makes no sense. It just doesn't make any sense," said Connie Ross, the couple's neighbor.
The couple lived in a home a few miles from the crash scene.
Ross says the wife is a nurse, the husband in real estate, and that they're the doting parents of four young children.
"They're good parents - never heard loud voices other than playing," said Ross.
An employee at the St. Joseph Dialysis Center in Puyallup confirmed the wife is an employee there. It is the same place Devonne said his son goes for diabetes treatments.
A woman identifying herself as the children's grandmother didn't want to be interviewed on camera, but says her daughter has been married 10 years. On the phone from the hospital, she said her daughter has a broken leg, back and ribs.
The victim's husband is now under arrest, potentially facing three charges of attempted murder, including one with the element of domestic violence.
"All the people that survived these injuries at this point are very lucky," said Gundermann. "We have airbag deployment, we have vehicles traveling at a high rate of speed, colliding. It never ceases to surprise me what people survive and what they do not. Fortunately today we have some survivors."
The three people injured in the crash are being cared for at Tacoma General Hospital and Good Samaritan Hospital. The hospitals did not release their conditions.
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