Squalicum High School grad killed by suspected drunk driver on Fourth of July
A Squalicum High School graduate and incoming Bellingham Technical College student was fatally struck by a drunk driver in Sedro-Woolley on the Fourth of July.
Anahi Rose Mendoza, 19, was selling fireworks with her family near Highway 20 and Township Street on July 4 to fund a trip to Florida, according to a GoFundMe campaign created to support her family.
The Sedro-Woolley Police Department said officers were dispatched to the area at about 2:04 p.m. and learned that a car was heading west on Highway 20 at a high rate of speed when it left the roadway and struck Mendoza, who was waving a sign and a traffic control device.
The suspect then fled the scene, police said, but later returned to the area. Witnesses helped identify the suspect and the car, and the vehicle and suspect were found near Highway 20 and Ball Street.
The suspect was booked into the Skagit County Jail on suspicion of vehicular homicide, DUI and driving with a suspended license. Police said the individual has a criminal history in multiple states and 17 felony convictions in Washington for crimes including vehicular assault, attempts to elude police, robbery, theft, forgery and attempted second-degree assault. The suspect has yet to be formally charged.
Witnesses and first responders provided aid to Mendoza, but she ultimately died from her injuries.
“We are entirely devastated,” Mendoza’s uncle wrote on the GoFundMe. “Our family is torn apart, lost, and completely broken without her.”
He called his niece “a pillar of strength and love for everyone around her.” He said she was proud of her Guatemalan heritage, and planned to pursue a career as a radiation technician with an ultimate goal of becoming an ultrasound technician.
“Words cannot describe what I am feeling,” Mendoza’s mother wrote. “Anahi was the kindest, most caring, most amazing young woman, and it was truly an honor to be her mother. She was my best friend, and I don’t know how to live in a world she is not in.”
The GoFundMe campaign had raised nearly $25,000 as of the morning of Monday, July 6..