An 18-year-old Vancouver man told police he was trying to end his own life earlier this summer when he crashed into three cars in a school parking lot, causing minor injuries to a woman whose car was ensnared by sliding wreckage.
More than two months after the June 3 crash, Clark County prosecutors are leaning toward charging Samuel R. Shimpach. Following an investigation, the Vancouver Police Department recommended three counts of first-degree malicious mischief, one for each car damaged by Shimpach’s truck-turned-spear.
He has not been arrested.
The incident, which occurred at 10:25 a.m., left Shimpach’s maroon pickup standing on its nose atop the wreckage of a black Volkswagen Beetle.
The truck T-boned the Volks-wagen and pushed it across two empty spaces into a parked red Toyota Camry. Then all three vehicles slammed into Shaleign Mabry’s maroon Oldsmobile, which was parked an additional space away with Mabry and two children inside. The other two vehicles were unoccupied.
“We’re close to charging it,” said Bob Shannon, a deputy prosecutor who added he’s communicated recently with Shimpach’s attorney. “I think it’s going to be charged very soon.”
Shannon said Wednesday charges of first-degree malicious mischief and reckless endangerment are likely to be filed “within the week.”
The first clear picture of what led to the violent parking lot crash emerged in newly available police records. Shimpach told police he took a handful of prescription pills and climbed into his truck. He was tired, he told them. He “wanted to end it.”
Asked to clarify, he told investigators he intended to commit suicide.
“He drove around looking for a place he could do it without hurting anyone. However, as he drove, he couldn’t find a place that looked right,” according to the police report.
When he came upon Shahala Middle School, 601 S.E. 192nd Ave., he told police he thought he’d found the right place. He told police he saw no people, only the parked cars.
The lot shared by the school and Fisher Basin Community Park sits about 50 yards from 192nd Avenue. A concrete island at the edge of the lot served as something of a ramp for the truck that was described as traveling at a “high rate of speed.”
“He said he was completely awake and intended to run into the cars to end it,” according to the report.
Somewhat remarkably, there were no serious injuries in the wreck.
Mabry’s car was last in the line she didn’t want to be in. She told police she heard no “braking or squealing tires, only a loud crash and then the vehicles moving,” according to records.
Mabry, 26, was taking her boys, Mason, now 6 months, and Carter, 2, to the park for a play date. “I’m just thankful those cars were there or we would have been dead,” she said immediately after the crash.
Calls Wednesday to Shimpach’s attorney, Jeff Simpson of Greenen & Greenen, were not returned.
Bob Albrecht: 360-735-4522 or bob.albrecht@columbian.com.
