Police say he refused to call for help as best friend was dying on a Franklin County road
An Othello man is charged with vehicular homicide after he refused to call police after a crash that left his best friend dying.
Franklin County prosecutors charged Juan Lisandor Garcia, 25, with vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular assault following a deadly crash on Glade North Road, 23 miles north of Pasco, on April 29.
He is accused of driving drunk in the wreck that killed Adrian Flores, 25, of Othello.
Garcia is out of Franklin County jail after paying a bond on $100,000 bail. He is required to wear a monitoring device that will track if he drinks any alcohol.
Garcia, Flores and two women were drinking at a Pasco bar on April 29 before deciding to head to Moses Lake, according to court documents. Garcia offered to drive because he had been drinking the least.
Adrian and one of the women got into the back of the car while Garcia started driving and the other woman got into the passenger seat. The women fell asleep as they headed north.
They were south of Basin City about 2:30 a.m. when Garcia allegedly lost control of the car. It went off the side of the road for 200 feet, before he yanked the wheel back toward the road.
This sent the car rolling for another 100 feet. Flores was thrown from the car.
Speed is believed to have factored into the crash, according to court documents.
Neither of the women saw what happened because they said they were sleeping when the crash happened.
One of the women told police that after the crash, Garcia refused to call 911, and that he told the women they should lie to police.
Both of the women had lost their phones, leaving Garcia with the only cellphone. One of the women got the phone away from him and called 911.
When Deputy Christopher Neal arrived, he found Garcia performing CPR on Flores. He tried telling the deputy that Flores was driving, but one of the women yelled, “No he was not, you were!”
As the deputy took over giving Flores aid, “Juan was standing near me, telling me to keep going and yelling ‘that was my best friend.’” Neal wrote that he could smell alcohol on Garcia.
Garcia told police they were going to meet in Richland at Flight Tap and Table, when Flores got involved in a crash about 10 p.m. Garcia said they left directly from Richland to pick him up. It’s unclear whether they ever actually were at Flight Tap. He claimed one of the women was driving the car, and before the crash he tried grabbing the wheel and correcting the car.
After rolling several times, he claimed he switched seats with the woman.
Garcia and the two women were treated at a local hospital, and Garcia’s blood was taken for a later test.
This story was originally published May 9, 2023 at 12:22 PM.