SPOKANE — With his feet bound in gauze and a plastic brace hugging his neck, Merrill Smith finally spoke Friday morning after five days in the hospital.
His sons still were trying to convince him his wife of 49 years isn’t coming back. Judie Smith, 70, died in a crash Sunday night on Bigelow Gulch Road. She was in the right-front seat of a Chevy Geo, with her husband driving, when another car crossed the centerline and struck it head-on.
Aaron Smith said the message hasn’t sunk in.
“The first thing he asked me this morning was, ‘Does your mom know I’m here?’ ”
‘Unstoppable’
A somber grin spread across Erik Smith’s face as he held up one of his mother’s racing trophies at the family’s home in Deer Park.
“She won more racing trophies than my father,” he said, plucking a small, golden car from a bookshelf.
Judie Smith stormed into the racing scene after meeting her husband, a professional mechanic and lifelong fan of Jaguars. Aaron Smith said they married in the late 1960s when they both worked for the San Jose Water Co. in California.
“My mom noticed him because he was driving a Mark VII Jaguar. She asked a friend, ‘Who’s the guy with the Jaguar?’ And he asked someone else, ‘Who’s the new girl on the switchboard?’ ”
Judie Smith was defiant until the end, her sons said.
Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 17, she was a professional belly dancer through the 1970s, a time when the scantily clad shimmy wasn’t widely accepted. She also managed a studio in downtown Spokane and continued teaching even when the disease forced her to use a wheelchair.
“Undaunted, she began teaching from her wheelchair, telling students how to move their feet and about the various arm positions,” said an April 6, 1975, story in The Spokesman-Review.
In addition to their two biological sons — Aaron and Erik — the Smiths were foster parents to 32 children. In 1974, Judie Smith was named Multiple Sclerosis Mother of the Year and traveled to the White House and had her picture taken with President Gerald Ford.
“She was unstoppable,” said Michael Ankney, one of her foster sons.
Driver arrested
Court records depict the grisly aftermath of the crash that killed Smith and seriously injured her husband. They were driving home from Post Falls when a Honda Civic slammed into them at about 8 p.m. on Bigelow Gulch near Evergreen Road.
A passing driver stopped to help, and another witness told police the crumpled cars “were still steaming and smoking,” according to court records.
The driver of the Civic was identified as Shelly R. Riley, 30. Police believe she and her fiance had been drinking for several hours at a bar, Fizzie Mulligan’s on West Hastings Road. The man told police he thought Riley was sober enough to drive.
A paramedic who treated Riley for minor injuries “could smell the obvious and strong odor of alcoholic beverages on her breath,” court records say.
The couple got into an argument after leaving the bar, the fiance said, and Riley punched him multiple times in the face, according to court records. The man tried to flee when the car stopped at an intersection, but she sped away when he opened the door, grabbed him and started biting the top of his head, drawing blood, he told police.
Witnesses said after the crash the man was yelling at Riley, “This is your fault,” according to court records. The couple have an 8-month-old daughter, who was in the back seat but was not injured in the crash.
During a court hearing Friday afternoon in Spokane County District Court, Judge Aimee Maurer said Riley has been accused of domestic violence at least five times since 2014. Riley is being held in the Spokane County Jail and was not available for an interview Friday. The judge set her bond at $750,000.
Mary Birkenbuel, who attended the court hearing, called Riley a close friend but described her as “stubborn.”
“She does like her alcohol,” Birkenbuel said. “But, other than that, she’s a great person. She’s a great mother. I thought she was going down the right path after the baby.”
She said Riley had texted her from the bar Sunday night.
“She said she was out with her hubby, having a good time with their kid, loving life,” Birkenbuel said. “I’m sure she’s holding so much guilt right now.”
Aaron Smith said his family wouldn’t waste time feeling angry.
But, he said, “I want to see accountability. I’d want to be held accountable if I was the one who crashed the car.”
No. 1 problem
Earlier this month, Spokane County Prosecutor Larry Haskell announced his office would take a tougher approach toward people who drive under the influence, citing an increase in deaths and injuries linked to DUI.
Haskell said his concerns were highlighted just three days later, when a 22-year-old woman suspected of DUI ran a red light on Sprague Avenue at Sullivan Road and crashed into an SUV, injuring five people.
“It is a huge and grave public safety issue,” said Haskell, adding that he encourages public discussion of the issue. “In my view, the very fact that people are talking about this is the first step toward fixing the problem.”
This has been a particularly bad year, Haskell said. In the same span of time last year in Spokane County, there were two fewer vehicular homicide cases and five fewer vehicular assault cases, he said.
The county last year saw 20 deaths and 20 serious injuries because of impaired drivers, according to data from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. Statewide, impaired driving accounted for 262 deaths and 2,094 serious injuries.
“In Spokane, impaired driving is the No. 1 problem,” said Karen Wigen, who leads the county’s Target Zero campaign, which aims for zero traffic deaths.
‘He’s still fighting’
Merrill Smith, 72, is “a hot-rodder at heart” who has owned auto shops in Spokane and Deer Park since moving to the area in 1971. There are dozens of cars on his property, and until Sunday afternoon he was still working on several of them in a garage so big he calls it Fort Knox.
“When he gets back on his feet, he’ll go back on to tinkering,” Aaron Smith said. “He just feels compelled to do it.”
For now, the elder Smith is confined to a hospital bed with severe head trauma, two broken feet, three broken vertebrae, a fractured hip and six broken ribs. Aaron Smith figured it will be six to eight weeks before his father starts regaining mobility.
The family visited him Friday afternoon at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. He was able to say “I love you” to two of his grandchildren and even cracked a smile for family photos. He still didn’t know what happened to his wife.
At the Deer Park home earlier in the day, Aaron Smith took a call from one of his father’s friends, the president of the local Ford Thunderbird enthusiasts club. The caller wanted to assure the club’s other members that their favorite wrench-head would be OK.
The son replied, “He’s still fighting.”
