Over the last weekend of July, a tragic accident occurred on Airport Road in Carbon County, in which two young lives were lost. Charges have now come against Tyler Lynn Laws, 33-year-old driver in the accident.
Law enforcement officers responded to a report of a single-vehicle fire that had three subjects inside of the vehicle at approximately 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 27. Upon responding to the scene, officers discovered a minor female passenger outside of the vehicle, who later allegedly informed officers that all of the occupants of the vehicle had been consuming alcohol at a house party prior to the accident, including Laws.
Officers were able to rescue Laws from the driver’s seat of the crashed vehicle. However, due to the position of the vehicle and the flames, responding officers were reportedly unable to retrieve 24-year-old male MaCade Davis and 16-year-old female passenger Jaxxlyn Cowley, who succumbed to their fatal injuries.
The minor female passenger also supposedly witnessed the vehicle traveling at a rate of 112 miles per hour just before the incident occurred. With this information, a blood-draw warrant was secured for Law’s blood, which was drawn by a Utah Highway Patrol trooper.
It was reported that the blood was sent to the Utah Forensic Toxicology Lab for testing and investigators were able to obtain medical records for Laws following the incident. This showed that the blood-alcohol level was .143, nearly three times the legal limit of .05. A search warrant was also obtained for the vehicle’s Event Data Recorder.
An Event Data Recorder is a device installed in a motor vehicle to record technical vehicle and occupant information for a brief period before, during and after a crash for monitoring and assessing vehicle safety system performance. With this information on hand, it was discovered that the vehicle had been traveling at 107 miles per hour five seconds before the collision.
Laws had previously been charged in 2012 in Wyoming for sexual abuse of a minor in the 2nd degree and is a registered sex offender. He now faces two counts of criminal homicide, automobile homicide, and a count of reckless driving.
Based on the probable cause statement, law enforcement was commanded to arrest and deliver Laws to the Carbon County Jail.