An Anchorage grand jury handed up a three-count indictment Wednesday charging Ashley Bashore with criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of an injury accident and tampering with physical evidence, said Anchorage police Lt. Dave Parker.
Killed in the crash was Hubert Tunuchuk II, 28, a resident of the Western Alaska village of Chefornak. The city of Chefornak had sent him to the state vocational-technical school in Seward to study power plant operations. He had caught a ride from Seward to spend Easter weekend in Anchorage with friends. He was hit on the overpass above the Seward Highway early on April 24. He suffered head and internal injuries and died the same day.
By the next day, police had located the vehicle that hit Tunuchuk, a Hyundai Santa Fe, Parker said. But hit-and-run cases can take months or longer to solve because police have to process evidence establishing who was driving, the police spokesman said. The tampering charge stems from an allegation that Bashore tried to tried to wipe evidence of the crash off the SUV, Parker said.
"After Mr. Tunuchuk was struck, the car took off and apparently she attempted to destroy the evidence that the car had been in this collision," Parker said.
The consequences are much worse for drivers who leave the scene of a serious accident, he said. The law requires drivers to stop and render aid.
Bashore was jailed and will make a court appearance this afternoon, he said. More information should be available then, he said.
Bail was set at $2,500 with a court-ordered third-party custodian required for release, Parker said. Bashore is also forbidden from driving while on bail, he said.
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