Officials identify the driver of the car that crossed the center line as Susanna Kay Cooper. Cooper, the mother of two young children, lived on a dairy farm in Skamokawa. She was driving a 1991 Mazda. Elaine Myers was driving a 1984 Nissan. Both cars were demolished.
Cooper goes to the hospital in critical condition.
She has little chance to live-perforated heart, broken jaw, broken leg, the list goes on. Officials say that she has a blood-alcohol level of .20, twice the legal limit in Washington, and that she has a previous conviction for drunken driving. When Cooper awakens and hears that she has killed, she says she wants to die herself. But she lives. At that moment, David Lee Myers is so full of grief and horror that he could, he thinks, murder this person with his hands.