Driver in Sutter County double fatal begins jail sentence
A Rocklin man involved in an accident that killed two teenagers in Sutter County has begun serving a one-year county jail sentence.
Ryan J. White, 24, pleaded no contest to one felony count of driving under the influence causing death, according to court records.
He had been charged with two felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter.
The accident happened on Aug. 18, 2013, when a 2008 Mazda driven by White was traveling east on Riego Road, south of Highway 99.
The Mazda drifted into the westbound traffic lane directly into the path of a 2005 Winnebago.
The front passenger side of the Mazda crashed into the front passenger side of the Winnebago. The Mazda continued northeast, eventually stopping in a ditch north of Riego Road, the California Highway Patrol said.
White’s two passengers, a 17-year-old Loomis boy and a 19-year-old man from Elk Grove, were pronounced dead at the scene, the CHP said. White was severely injured.
The driver and passenger in the Winnebago escaped with minor injuries, the CHP said.
In a declaration filed in Sutter County Superior Court, the CHP said at the scene of the collision “there were multiple indicators in and about the (Mazda) that suggested that one or more persons in the vehicle had been or were engaging in the use of controlled substances.”
Those indicators included marijuana in the center console of the Mazda, a smoking pipe around White’s neck, a 5pound bottle of nitrous oxide in the vehicle along with “numerous balloons,” and small bindles of white powder, probably methamphetamine, in the possession of one of the dead teens.
The CHP declaration said White probably “had consumed nitrous oxide from the balloon to obtain a ‘high.’”
The CHP later discovered hospital records for White indicating he had consumed meth and marijuana.
White was charged in 2015. He pleaded no contest last December and was sentenced earlier this year to one year in jail starting last Friday, plus five years probation.
White also was ordered to participate in a threemonth DUI program once he is released from jail, according to court records. He also will have an ignition interlock device installed on the vehicle he drives.
In an A1 profile titled “Thoughts About America” on July 4, Candice Fresquez was incorrectly cited as being part of the Chinese American Museum of Northern California. Fresquez is part of the Marysville Chinese Community, Bok Kai Temple Museum Project, as well as the Chinatown Archway Project headed through the Marysville Chinese Community.