Man sentenced to 23 years for second vehicular manslaughter charge

Today the Pierce County Superior Court sentenced Jacob Skylar Allyn Lee, 27, to over 23 years in prison for vehicular homicide, his second.

“My son’s life was taken. I felt like mine was, too,” said the victim’s mother addressing the court. “He had the biggest heart. He’d give you the shirt off his back and his last dollar.”

On September 11, 2016, Washington State Patrol received a 911 call reporting a car in the ditch and a man standing on the side of the road with a bloody face and shirt on State Route 7 just south of 304th. A Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy arrived and found Lee, who had a severe injury to his left arm. He was bleeding heavily and there was a blood trail leading back to the driver’s side of the Jeep Grand Cherokee in the ditch on the west side of the road.

While a sheriff’s deputy applied a neck brace and tourniquet to the defendant, he noted an obvious odor of intoxicants on the defendant’s breath. Lab tests revealed the presence of alcohol, cannabinoids, and methamphetamine in the defendant’s blood.

The defendant asked the deputy applying the tourniquet to check for another person, stating that he thought another person was in the vehicle with him, and he didn’t know whether or not he had dropped the person off. When Washington State Troopers arrived to investigate, tire tracks led troopers to the body of the victim, Christopher A. Grice. Medical aid determined Grice was dead at the scene. He had suffered significant trauma to his head and neck.

The defendant’s vehicle left the roadway and hit the deep ditch embankment, which ejected Mr. Grice, who was not wearing a seatbelt. The injuries sustained by the victim were consistent with ejection from the vehicle and being pull from the Jeep as his body was pinched between the Jeep and the ground.

Lee was found guilty in February following a bench trial.

He was previously convicted of vehicular homicide in 2009 and was sentenced in that case to three and half years in prison.