Hooked up: Kid fishing events to open your season E1
SUNDAY, 04.19.2015
Judge allows lawsuit
●
EVERETT, WASHINGTON
●
WWW.HERALDNET.COM
●
$1.50 (HIGHER IN OUTLYING AREAS)
40 years of advocacy
Some of the victims maintain that a fatal 2010 crash was a result of confusing signage at Broadway and 41st and not just the driver’s drunkeness. By Diana Hefley Herald Writer
EVERETT — Lawyers for the city of Everett failed to convince a judge on Friday to toss out a lawsuit that in part blames faulty road design for a drunken crash that killed two people and injured two others in 2010. The lawsuit alleges that Old Broadway near the north end of the Evergreen Cemetery is “unreasonably dangerous,” and has been the site of nearly two dozen crashes since 2001. The city has failed to install adequate traffic control devices, according to the lawsuit filed in 2013 in Snohomish County Superior Court. Everett officials contend there is no evidence that Camille Spink was confused or misled by the multiple road signs already in place. They argued Friday that a jury shouldn’t be allowed to speculate if additional signs or a different traffic design would have prevented the crash. “Moreover, we have a ready explanation for this accident. Spink was drunk,” Everett’s attorney Andrew Cooley wrote in court papers. Spink missed the sharp righthand turn over a short bridge at the north end of Broadway. See LAWSUIT, Page A8
Classified . . . . . . . . . . . . . .E3 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . .D7 Dear Abby. . . . . . . . . . . . . .D7 Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . .D7 Lottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A2 Movies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .D4 Obituaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . .B4
DAN BATES / THE HERALD
Videographers Karim Miller (left) and Cesar Hildago-Lanteros prepare to record VSS board member Tina Drain (seated, left) interview one of the founders of the organization, Lola Linstad.
Early support group for crime victims and their families grew out of pain, frustration and an impulse to help others By Diana Hefley Herald Writer
EVERETT — It was 1975 and Lola Linstad’s daughter was missing. There had been a string of disappearances. Ted Bundy was responsible for some and others were the work of different serial killers. Parents of the missing girls and women were frustrated with the criminal justice system. Their voices, worry and grief seemed lost in the shuffle of police investigations and court proceedings. “I wonder what the other mothers are doing?” Linstad remembered asking her neighbor, Linda Barker-Lowrance. The two women hadn’t known each other long. Linstad, 42, lived two blocks away and ran a daycare out of her Seattle home. Barker-Lowrance, 25, needed
Victim Support Services VSS is a nonprofit organization. More information or to donate: www.victimsupportservices.org or 425-252-6081
someone to watch her children while she went to PTA meetings. “Let’s find out,” Barker-Lowrance answered her distraught neighbor. Linstad’s daughter, Vonnie Stuth, 19, had vanished the night before Thanksgiving 1974. Her husband, who worked nights, returned to the newlyweds’ Burien home to find the lights and TV on. Stuth
and her sister had talked on the phone earlier that night but no one had heard from her since. A Seattle newspaper reporter provided the neighbors with the phone numbers and addresses of several families whose daughters were missing or had been found dead. Thirteen families met in the social hall of a Catholic church in White Center. That was Feb. 25, 1975. “We never had any long-range plans. We were going to find out what was wrong with the system, change it and be done,” Linstad said. The group, then known as Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims, became one of the nation’s first victim advocacy organizations. Over the years See VSS, Page A8
Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .A9 Viewpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . .B7
WAGE WARS
CITIZENS X 2
FACEBOOKING FIDO
Five myths about fast-food work. Viewpoints, B7
Area Filipinos get a special visit. Local, B1
Social media is helping people help lost dogs. Good Life, D1
Sweltering 67/47, C10
SUNDAY
VOL. 115, NO. 67 © 2015 THE DAILY HERALD CO.
6
42963 55555
7
1280233