The son and daughter-in-law of former Kirkland Mayor Bill Woods were killed when the car they were in was struck by a drunk driver on Highway 9 in Marysville Nov. 29. Tom (57) and Hilda Woods (62) were with neighbors Melissa (48) and Brad Agerup (54) in their Hyundai Azera when a 2005 Ford Explorer going an estimated 40 mph ran a stop sign near the intersection of 108th Street Northeast and Highway 9, striking the vehicle. All of the occupants in the Azera were killed on impact and were residents of Snohomish.
“It came as a real shock,” Woods said of his son’s death. “The kids were coming back from dinner and were broadsided.”
Woods and wife, JoMae, last spoke with their son the morning of Nov. 29.
“He called every day on the phone to talk to his mother,” Woods said. “We talked to him that Sunday and he said he was going out to plan a birthday party for his neighbor.”
The two couples were returning home after visiting the Silver Reef Casino in Whatcom County when the drunk driver struck their vehicle.
The driver of the Explorer, 27-year-old Matthew C. McDonald, of Snohomish, admitted to police on the scene that he had consumed eight beers and submitted to a breath sample that yielded a blood-alcohol level of 0.123 percent. The legal limit is 0.08. He is being investigated for four felony charges including vehicular homicide. McDonald initially fled the scene of the accident but returned a short time later. McDonald was initially taken to Providence Everett Regional Medical Center for minor injuries but then booked into Snohomish County Jail for investigation into the accident. A judge set his bail at $1 million.
A passenger in the Ford Explorer was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
Woods said the passenger riding in the Ford Explorer told police he was scared to death to get into the car with the drunk driver, “but he did. It’s kind of tragic. He (the driver) walked away with little or no injuries. But that’s pretty typical – drunks always fall down and never get hurt.”
McDonald was not the only person at the scene arrested for DUI. A 48-year-old investigator with the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s office showed up to the scene of the crash smelling of alcohol.
Remembering his son
Woods said he will remember his son as a “really special guy.”
Tom was born Aug. 17, 1952 and grew up in Kirkland. His father described him as “a dreamer. We constantly had to keep after him to do his studies.”
Tom also took a lot of heat from his classmates at Lake Washington High School when his father was the Kirkland mayor (from 1967-1973).
Woods recalled a time when Tom was a senior in high school and police caught he and his friends speeding down Lake Washington Boulevard.
“The chief of police said, ‘what do you want me to do, Bill,’ and I said, ‘let’s make them pay for it,’” Woods said.
Tom and his friends spent the next two days cleaning up trash along the boulevard.
“Tom was very upset and said, ‘if you weren’t my dad and the mayor, I would’ve gotten away with it.”
Tom met his wife, Hilda, when he was in the Army and they got married at the Congregational Church in Kirkland in 1975.
A University of Washington graduate and avid Husky fan, Tom was the Western Region Sales Manager for the Altech Corp. and a volunteer for the Kirkland Fire Department.
Hilda had recently retired from the Lake Washington School District after 21 years as a counselor and Spanish interpreter.
Woods said though the family is thankful they got to spend Thanksgiving with Tom and Hilda, “it’s going to be difficult. He was our only son.”
Survivors include parents William C. and JoMae Woods; sister, Kim Nakanishi of Woodinville; daughter Debbie Howell and her husband, Dan of Shoreline; daughters Susie Woods of Auburn, and Cynthia East and her husband, Jon of Kirkland; and their grandchildren, Trinity and Sophia. Hilda is survived by her mother, Luz Gutierrez; sisters, Estella Meise, Patricia Homberg and Graciela Abraham; and brother, Pepe Gutierrex.
Editor Carrie Wood contributed to this report.
