Three Family Members Involved in Bizarre Series of Highway Accidents

Last month, officers of the California Highway Patrol issued a strange warning to drivers on Highway 89.

If they spotted pedestrians walking along the roadway, slow down.

In the space of three days, three cousins had been hit--and one of them killed--by passing vehicles. According to the CHP, the men had run, dived or lain down in traffic along a 55-mph stretch of the highway that winds its way through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

It began when the family’s pride, Lance Wilson, a 19-year-old high school sports star, was struck and killed. Within days, his two cousins were injured after officials say they ran or dived in front of cars on the same highway.

“Alcohol, emotion and bad judgment is the only common thread that we can see,” said Capt. Roger Gamst of the California Highway Patrol.

Even the Wilson family doesn’t know what happened. They say their hearts have been broken twice: first, by the death and near-fatal accidents and second, by the public nature of their private tragedy.

Now the closely knit Native American family is pulling closer as they struggle against the harsh judgments and age-old prejudices of their neighbors in this community about 250 miles north of Sacramento.

Shortly after midnight on July 23, Royal Thomas of Colorado crossed the Hat Creek bridge in a pickup truck traveling 65 mph, the CHP said.

Thunderstorms rumbled across the foothills, making the dark stretch of Highway 89 even darker than normal.

Thomas said his headlights hit on something in the road as he approached the turnoff for the Hat Creek Full Gospel Indian Mission, and he swerved across the center line to avoid it.

Suddenly the object sat up.

Thomas’ right bumper struck Lance Wilson in the head, killing him.

Less than 72 hours after Wilson died, his cousin, Mark Wilson, 20, sat in a parked car alongside Highway 89. Suddenly he leaped out and dashed into traffic. A right-side mirror on an oncoming Buick sent him sprawling and landed him in the hospital for four days.

“I was out there sleepwalking,” he told KRCR-TV in Redding from his hospital bed. He also had been drinking, he said.

Naomi Carlton of nearby Burney had watched the helicopter touch down to pick up the injured Mark Wilson. As she headed home three hours later, the stricken face of the Buick driver was foremost on her mind.

Near the spot where Lance Wilson had died, Carlton spotted two women and a man walking along the roadway. She slowed down and hoped nothing would happen.

In what seemed like slow motion, the man took one step backward, turned and flung himself in front of her Mercedes-Benz, she said. Her bumper brushed Lee Alex Gonzalez, 18, but he got up and walked away. He suffered minor injuries.

Gonzalez initially said he tripped, then later told investigators he’d been drinking, Gamst said. By then, police had told local reporters that drivers should be careful on the highway.

Rumors have swirled around Shasta County in the wake of the Highway 89 accidents. One suggests that Lance Wilson was involved in a Native American “rite of passage” ritual, said Walt Caldwell, editor of the weekly Mountain Echo.

Days after the accidents, a cashier at the Maahcooatche General Store, about a mile down the road, gave his opinion:

“Drunk stupidity,” said the clerk, who declined to give his name. “That’s what happens when you give people welfare checks.”

Enmity between whites and the Pit River tribe is nothing new in Shasta County. “There’s always been bad blood, I guess, between the two,” said Lynell Wilson, an aunt of the youths. “This is a very racist town.”

And the Wilsons are well aware of what many of their Shasta County neighbors are saying about the young men. As his aunt put it: “Just a drunken Indian kid.”

Lance Wilson, a member of the Pit River tribe, lived his life in a wooden house heated by a wood stove that his great-grandfather built alongside Highway 89.

“We’re simple people,” said his mother, Phyllis Wilson.

A natural athlete, Lance distinguished himself on the baseball diamond and gridiron. A small bookshelf next to the wood stove grew cluttered with trophies: a Golden Glove winner in 1997 and an honorable mention all-league lineman.

Life had its share of tragedy. Alcohol flowed through Hat Creek, as officials say it does throughout Shasta County, and drunken driving accidents claimed the lives of friends and relatives.

Larry Snelling, director of Indian education at Fall River High School, said Lance Wilson was a well-respected and capable young man: a better than average student, a sports star, proud of his heritage and his school, who spoke his mind but did not make trouble.

“I’ve never seen anyone talk badly about him,” said Snelling, a pallbearer at the funeral. “I’ve never seen anyone say a cross word about him. I don’t know how many people you can say that about.”

Lance graduated from high school in a community where many young men drop out. In the family photo album, his long black hair spills out from under his blue graduation cap onto the shoulders of his gown.

His family can’t quite believe what police say happened. Lance had been drinking that night, they say, but he wouldn’t go and lie in the middle of the highway.

“Lance had no quit in him,” said his uncle, Ross Wilson, as tears filled his eyes. “They made it seem like Lance would give up. But Lance would never give up.”

It may never be clear exactly what happened on Highway 89 last month.

Passing motorists say they saw three men on the side of the road with Lance Wilson moments before he died. None has been found. And hours before the first accident, Lance and Mark Wilson were occupants of a car that slammed into a tree.

At Fall River High School, they are trying to set up a scholarship in Lance’s name, Snelling said. His peers looked up to him because he persevered despite the odds.

“Lance,” Lynell Wilson said, “was a survivor.”