Mysteries compound anguish in fatal crash

More than a month after Stacy Jo Yager and Heikki Kanerva died in a traffic collision near Monroe, the Washington State Patrol is still trying to determine what caused the accident.

The questions over what caused their vehicles to collide on Highway 522 have added to the anguish of friends and family of them both. Further clouding the mystery is the bloody clothing found in Kanerva's Kirkland home the day of the accident and reports that he may have been trying to pass a red Ford Mustang a witness saw in the area.

At about 5:20 p.m. Aug. 21, Yager, 34, was driving a 30-foot Gulfstream motor home, heading west on Highway 522 toward Interstate 405. She'd picked up the rented recreational vehicle a few minutes earlier near Monroe and had driven barely five miles.

At the same time, Kanerva, 39, was driving his 1996 Porsche 911 and had just crossed the bridge where the highway passes over the Snohomish River, headed east toward Monroe.

The Porsche crossed into a passing zone and crashed into the driver's-side corner of the motor home. The vehicles caught fire.

The State Patrol is looking into such factors as whether the highway design could have had a role in causing the crash. Toxicology tests also have been done, but the results have not been made public.

It wasn't raining. Visibility was good. Kanerva wasn't believed to have been speeding. Traffic wasn't unusual. It's unclear whether Kanerva was trying to pass another car, even though the accident occurred in a passing zone, one of the few sections of highway marked to allow eastbound traffic to pass.

Kanerva was a key official at Microsoft, serving as director of Office program management, helping run Microsoft's Office suite of word-processing, spreadsheet and other applications.

Kanerva was born in Finland and was a member of the Finnish Olympic cross-country ski team. He was recruited by the University of Alaska and attended college on a skiing scholarship.

He joined Microsoft in 1989. He also was a sailing enthusiast and kept a Finnish-built 40-foot boat at a slip at the Semiahmoo Marina in Blaine, Whatcom County.

Yager, who grew up in Edmonds, and her husband, Ken Yager, lived in Selah, Yakima County, with their children, Alex, 10, and Brianna, 8. Stacy Yager was a product manager for Tree Top.

Her passion, however, was backing her husband as a competitor in grueling Ironman Triathlon competitions.

"Actually, it was her idea," said Ken Yager, explaining there was little opportunity for work in his field of electrical engineering in Yakima. About three years ago, he said, Stacy suggested that she work and he pursue the Ironman competitions, with the goal of eventually competing in the Hawaii Ironman.

The family was heading for the Ironman Canada Triathlon in Penticton, B.C., when the accident took place. They had planned first to stop at Stacy Yager's parents' home in Edmonds. Ken Yager was to join them later in Penticton.

Waldo Downing, 67, Stacy Yager's stepfather, was riding in the front passenger seat when the crash occurred.

He tried to rescue Yager but couldn't get the driver's door open, said Stacy Yager's brother, Rick Glein, of Edmonds.

Downing broke a bone in his leg and suffered bruises but was able to return home the night of the accident.

State Patrol investigators learned that Kanerva had gone to work as usual at Microsoft that Wednesday but apparently had left work later in the morning. King County records show he went to a title-insurance company that morning to sign the closing documents on the sale of a house he had owned in Redmond.

Kanerva had purchased another house in downtown Kirkland and had moved there with a girlfriend about a month before his death.

Kanerva had been known to sometimes drive toward Monroe, either in the Porsche or on his motorcycle, apparently as a distraction from work, investigators reported.

Late that afternoon, Kanerva's girlfriend called the Kirkland Police Department to report him missing after he failed to return home.

She reported she had found bloody clothing in a bathtub.

The clothing was Kanerva's, and tests have been done to try to determine how the clothing came to be in the tub, investigators reported.

No note or other explanation for the events was discovered.

Investigators have checked a variety of leads, including talking to witnesses both at the accident scene and other locations.

One witness report indicated Kanerva may have been trying to pass a red Ford Mustang, said State Patrol Trooper Scott Witman. But no such car has been identified, and no owner has come forward.

Kanerva's girlfriend declined to discuss the accident.

In Selah, Ken Yager says he and his children are trying to adjust to the tragedy.

"My biggest concern is just making sure the kids are getting through it," he said.

Peyton Whitely: 206-464-2259 or pwhitely@seattletimes.com.