Honor student dies in crash

RENTON

No one ever questioned that Ashley Wiley had a bright future: The schoolteacher's daughter was an honor student, a camp counselor and soon-to-be captain of the varsity basketball team at Tahoma High School.

So the grief was all the more palpable yesterday when students and staff members learned the 17-year-old junior had died in a car crash over the weekend, her body found Monday morning in her crumpled car at the bottom of an embankment off a lonely rural road outside Renton.

Even as funeral plans were being completed yesterday, a basketball scholarship was set up in her memory.

"She was really highly regarded," Tahoma School District spokesman Kevin Patterson said yesterday.

Police surmise Wiley was driving home alone late Sunday along dark, winding Southeast Jones Road east of Renton when she lost control of her car, which tumbled down the hillside into a tree along the 18600 block.

A work crew found the car at 7 a.m., but she probably died instantly of head injuries, the King County Medical Examiner's Office said. Her seat belt was fastened, and an air bag had deployed, police said.

The crash was about a mile from her home. Police said there were no signs that alcohol was involved.

"We have nothing to lead us to believe this was anything more than a horrible accident," King County sheriff's spokesman Gregg Walker said.

Wiley had been elected to be one of the captains of the Tahoma girls basketball team next fall, when she would have been a senior, Patterson said.

She was active in the Leadership Club and served as a counselor for sixth-graders from Tahoma schools on annual trips to Camp Casey on Whidbey Island.

Her parents are Steve and Sandee Wiley of Maple Valley. Her mother teaches fourth grade at Wilderness Elementary School in the Tahoma School District. Her younger brother is in middle school.

A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. tomorrow at the Renton Assembly of God church, Highway 169 and 152nd Avenue Southeast.

Donations can be made at any Washington Mutual Bank branch to the Ashley Wiley Memorial Basketball Fund, which will support the Maple Valley Girls' Basketball Club.

Ian Ith's phone number is 206-464-2109. E-mail: iith@seattletimes.com