Background: News footage of the March 19, 2024 crash near Renton, Wash. (KOMO). Inset: News footage from Chase Daniel Jones’ court appearance via video from his hospital bed following the crash (KOMO).
A Washington teenager who broadsided a van carrying a mother and several children, killing four of the passengers, pleaded guilty to felony charges including vehicular homicide this week.
Chase Daniel Jones, 19, initially pleaded not guilty to the charges against him when he appeared in court via video from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from injuries sustained in the March 19, 2024, crash.
The violent collision killed the driver of the van, Andrea Hudson, 38, and her young passengers, Boyd “Buster” Brown, 12, Matilda Wilcoxson, 13, and Eloise Wilcoxson, 12. Hudson’s two children, Nolan and Charlotte Hudson, were also in the van and sustained serious injuries.
In a blog post from the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office on April 4, it was announced that Jones had changed his plea and accepted a guilty plea to all felony charges against him.
On the afternoon of the incident, Jones ran a red light at an intersection in his 2015 Audi A4, which he had purchased just weeks prior.
Court documents obtained by KOMO, a local ABC affiliate, stated that crash data from his car clocked him as going 112 mph in the 40 mph zone and never tried to brake. Witnesses reported seeing Jones “speeding and weaving around other traffic and using the shared turn lane” to pass other vehicles before the crash occurred.
Court documents also revealed that the Audi was the third car Jones had totaled “in a crash involving speed in 11 months.” In the previous two crashes, Jones was not cited by police.
The 2024 collision was caught on surveillance cameras, and KOMO, a local ABC affiliate, included the horrific footage in their coverage at the time.
Jones was also seriously injured in the fatal crash, suffering broken arms and legs and needing a breathing tube during recovery. After he was released from the hospital, he was taken into custody.
The prosecutor’s office stated that Jones’ plea included all the felony charges against him — four counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular assault. King County Prosecuting Attorney Leesa Manion said the office “would not have accepted anything less than a guilty plea as charged on all felony counts.”
The families of the victims were also “present and supportive” of the plea agreement.
Jones is scheduled to be sentenced on April 25 and remains in custody at Maleng Regional Justice Center.
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