Whatcom man pleads guilty to 2018 crash on Mount Baker Highway that killed one
A 24-year-old Maple Falls man pleaded guilty last week to vehicular homicide for the 2018 death of his 18-year-old passenger.
Christopher Alex Lundquist-Gust pleaded guilty Dec. 7 to one count of vehicular homicide, a felony, in Whatcom County Superior Court for the July 11, 2018 death of Cybil Hatcher.
Lundquist-Gust’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 20, according to court records.
Shortly before 12:30 a.m. on July 11, 2018, Washington State Patrol troopers responded to a one-vehicle rollover collision on the Mount Baker Highway near Deming.
A state patrol report on the wreck determined that Hatcher, from Blaine, was killed when a white 1999 Volkswagen Beetle driven by Lundquist-Gust was traveling westbound on State Route 542 near Marshall Hill Road and struck the guardrail. The vehicle spun into the eastbound lane, struck another guardrail, rolled and came to rest on its top, according to previous reporting in The Bellingham Herald.
Hatcher was declared dead at the scene as a result of the crash, court records state.
Lundquist-Gust, who was uninjured and wearing a seatbelt, was taken to St. Joseph’s hospital for evaluation. Lundquist-Gust, whose license was suspended at the time, admitted to consuming alcohol and marijuana before the wreck, court records show.
