Tri-Cities driver charged with wife’s death. He was speeding to pass a truck

A driver was allegedly speeding nearly twice the posted limit as he tried to pass a merging truck and ended up crashing into oncoming traffic on a south Richland road.

His 61-year-old wife — the front seat passenger in their Saturn sedan — died immediately when her side of the car was hit by an SUV.

Seven weeks after that T-bone crash, Melvin D. Williams Jr. has been charged with causing his wife’s death.

Williams was sent a summons to appear Aug. 12 in Benton County Superior Court on one felony count of vehicular homicide. The allegation is that he was driving either in a reckless manner or with disregard for the safety of others.

Williams, 62, told police he had been trying to get around a slower-moving pickup as he accelerated uphill on Leslie Road, according to court documents.

His Saturn hit the curb, breaking the front right tire, as he tried to pass in the right lane.

That caused Williams to lose control of the Saturn, sending it into the path of the truck in the left lane, and then the oncoming SUV, documents said.

Victoria A. Deberry suffered a broken neck.

The June 9 wreck closed down Leslie Road, between Canyon Street and Columbia Park Trail, for several hours while Richland investigators tried to determine what happened.

Police said at the time that the drivers gave conflicting accounts of who had the right-of-way when they were supposed to merge.

Court documents show that detectives relied on the event data recorder in the Saturn to piece together what Williams was doing in the seconds before the collision.

Leslie Road hill

Williams told police he had been driving south from Columbia Park Trail and was on the inside lane when he first tried to pass the pickup.

That section of Leslie Road going up the hill reduces from two southbound lanes into one. Vehicles in the right, outside lane have the right of way, while drivers in the left, inside lane are instructed to “merge right” with painted arrows on the roadway and posted signs.

Williams said when the truck moved into the left lane in front of his Saturn, he moved to the right.

The car’s data recorder showed he was traveling 76 mph with “93 percent (gas) pedal depression” at the point when the Saturn struck the right curb, documents said.

The posted speed limit on Leslie Road in that area is 40 mph.

As Williams lost control, the car skidded sideways to the left across the front of the truck, court documents said,

The Saturn continued to skid across the road so it was perpendicular to oncoming traffic as it slammed into the northbound SUV, documents said.

Williams reportedly was hospitalized for weeks while recovering from broken bones and other injuries.

This story was originally published July 30, 2021 at 12:52 PM.