Woman killed in Thanksgiving day crash on I-5 in Tacoma is identified
A woman killed in the early hours of Thanksgiving day when a suspected drunken driver hit the car she was riding in on Interstate 5 in Tacoma has been identified.
Kimberly Monica Rokpeter, 67, died Thursday of multiple blunt force injuries, according to a news release from the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office. Rokpeter was a Lakewood resident.
The crash occurred about 2:20 a.m. on southbound Interstate 5 near Portland Avenue when a jeep Wrangler hit the back of a Lexus sedan while both vehicles traveled south, Washington State Patrol trooper Robert Reyer said.
Rokpeter was in the backseat of the Lexus when the crash occurred. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver and another person in the front passenger seat were transported to an area hospital to be checked out.
The damaged Lexus stopped in the middle of the road when it was hit, but the Jeep’s driver kept going. Troopers found the vehicle abandoned about a mile and a half south of the scene.
Eventually, troopers tracked down the driver, a 25-year-old woman who was believed to be impaired at the time of the crash. She was booked into Pierce County Jail on suspicion of vehicular homicide. She has yet to be formally charged.
