Drivers sentenced in Lakewood wreck that killed 3; sentences in murder case, ATM robberies

Yahoo

04-03-2025

Two drivers who caused a three-vehicle collision in Lakewood that killed three people after they left American Lake Park were sentenced Friday to jail and prison time. Prosecutors said speeding and driving under the influence were factors in the wreck.
Jaquan Deshawn Price, 23, pleaded guilty Friday in Pierce County Superior Court to DUI vehicular homicide and was sentenced to eight years, 10 months in prison.
Eric Maneja Fernando, 34, pleaded guilty in January to committing vehicular homicide by driving with disregard for the safety of other people. He was sentenced Friday as a first-time offender to 90 days in jail.
On the day of the July 13, 2023 wreck, according to court filings, Price had been drinking at American Lake Park with three friends and using cannabis. Fernando was at the same park with his three children.
Fernando drove home on Gravelly Lake Drive in a Dodge Ram pickup, and witnesses later reported seeing a Toyota Rav4 driving recklessly behind him. Price was behind the wheel, and prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum that when the road widened from one lane to two, Price tried to pass Fernando. Prosecutors said Fernando accelerated to 82 mph in a 30 mph zone, preventing Price from doing so.
While the drivers were distracted, a Chevy Cavalier occupied by Miyako Jennings, 92, and Sue Yip, 86, tried to turn left onto the street from Wildaire Road. Prosecutors said Fernando clipped their vehicle before moving to the left, and then Price T-boned the Chevy at 75 mph.
The Chevy and the Rav4 ended up smashed into utility poles on opposite sides of the road, and the Dodge pickup stopped in a center turn lane. According to court filings, officers found a chaotic scene with some occupants of the vehicles screaming and bloodied.
Jennings, who was driving, was declared dead at the scene. Yip was taken to a hospital with a brain bleed and a spinal injury, and she died Aug. 10, 2023. A passenger in Price's vehicle, Bryan Eppling, 23, also was pronounced dead at the scene.
Toxicology testing later found that Price's blood-alcohol content was 0.047, below the legal limit of 0.08, and his level of THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana, was 4.4 nanograms per milliliter. The legal limit for THC is 5 nanograms per milliliter, although the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board notes that people can be found guilty of DUI regardless of blood test results.
Fernando's defense attorneys, Bryan Hershman and Scott McGinty, stated in a sentencing memorandum that Price and two of his surviving passengers claimed in interviews with law enforcement that Fernando cut off Price's vehicle, and then Price chased him while his passengers yelled at him to slow down.
The attorneys said there was no evidence in an accident-reconstruction report that Fernando engaged in reckless behavior that contributed to the crash, and they said there were independent observations that Fernando was trying to avoid a hazardous situation.
Prosecutors wrote in court filings that they believed Price to be the more culpable driver, but that Fernando's behavior was reckless when he accelerated to 80 mph, and he contributed to the loss of life that occurred.
One of three defendants sentenced in fatal shooting at Lakewood gas station
A 31-year-old man who is one of three defendants accused of murder for a fatal shooting that occurred during a robbery outside a Lakewood gas station has been sentenced to 21 years, five months in prison.
Mumit Carter-Shabazz pleaded guilty Feb. 19 to second-degree murder in the 2022 robbery and shooting of Carl Wayne White, 33. Judge Philip Thornton sentenced Carter-Shabazz the same day, handing him a sentence at the low end of the standard sentencing range.
Another defendant in the case, William Roy McMullen, is on trial in Superior Court. He is charged with first- and second-degree murder, first-degree assault, first-degree robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm. The third defendant, Brandon Kahumoku Cajigal, is scheduled to face trial on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree robbery March 20.
White was shot Dec. 18, 2022 while he was in his Dodge Ram at a gas station at 11122 Steele St. S. According to a trial memorandum in McMullen's case, White was a private security guard for the gas station's convenience store.
A surveillance video in the store's parking lot allegedly showed a gray sedan park close to White's truck shortly after 5 a.m. The driver, later identified as Cajigal, entered White's truck through the passenger door and was inside for about 11 minutes before two more men approached the truck from both sides and opened the vehicle's doors.
Minutes later, Cajigal is seen hopping on his leg on the passenger's side, appearing injured. The other man on the passenger side — identified by investigators as McMullen — walks around the truck to the driver's side and allegedly fires a handgun multiple times toward the open driver's door.
McMullen then got in the driver's seat, the third man got in the passenger's seat and the two drove off, leaving Cajigal and White behind.
Prosecutors said when Cajigal was arrested, he gave a statement that described a drug-related robbery. White was shot three times, and he was transferred to the University of Washington Medical Center, where he died about nine months after the shooting in September 2023.
In a statement filed with the court regarding Carter-Shabazz's charges being reduced from first-degree murder, deputy prosecuting attorney Thomas Howe wrote that White identified Carter-Shabazz in a photo montage shown to him by Lakewood detectives, but it was inadmissible because White was deceased.
Howe also said the investigation did not lead to an independent source that placed Carter-Shabazz at the scene of the shooting at the time it occurred, and that the case against him was based on an identification from a cooperating co-defendant and an associate of Carter-Shabazz who was uncooperative.
Three men tied to string of gunpoint ATM robberies have been sentenced
Three men who together robbed 10 people at gunpoint at ATMs in Tacoma in late 2022 and early 2023 have been sentenced.
Emmanuel Marcel Brown, 23, pleaded guilty in September to four counts of first-degree robbery. He was sentenced Feb. 20 to eight years, six months in prison.
Devon Anthony Mathis, 23, pleaded guilty Sept. 26 to nine counts of first-degree robbery and one count of attempted first-degree robbery. He was sentenced the same day to 18 years in prison.
Tofili Mahummad Ali Malo, 20, pleaded guilty in October 2023 to three counts of first-degree robbery and theft of a motor vehicle. He was sentenced Nov. 2, 2023 to 10 years in prison, which included a firearm-sentencing enhancement.
The robberies happened from late December 2022 through early January 2023 at walk-up ATMs near South 72nd Street and Pacific Avenue and South 56th Street and South Tacoma Way.