WATCH: We’re learning more tonight about the tragic head-on collision south of Nanaimo yesterday that killed two people. Friends have identified the driver of the pickup truck did not stop for RCMP and drove the wrong way down the Trans Canada Highway. And as Kendall Hanson reports the driver was involved in another fatal crash years ago.
A wreath is now visible near the site of Monday morning’s double fatal crash in south Nanaimo.
Two people died when the driver of a pickup truck fleeing from police drove in the wrong direction in the northbound lanes of Highway 1 and slammed head-on into an oncoming SUV.
The driver of the SUV, 54-year-old Cliff Bishop, died at the scene.
CHEK News has now learned that the pickup truck was being driven by 31-year-old Kurtis Timothy. In 2006, Timothy was behind the wheel of a stolen car when it went over an embankment on Hammond Bay Road and crash into the side of a building. A male passenger in the car died in the crash. At the time, another passenger who survived the crash said Timothy was driving at a high rate of speed when he lost control.
“Too fast, like 80 or 100,” said Jamelle Smith in an interview in May 2006. “He just picked me up and it went out of control. Like 15 minutes after I got picked up we crashed.”
Since 2006, Timothy had been in and out of court multiple times, with more than a dozen charges laid against him.
In 2016 police issued a warning saying he may be in possession of a handgun and was considered armed and dangerous.
Since Timothy was fleeing police just before Monday morning’s crash, Independent Investigations Office of BC is now looking at what happened.
“A single RCMP officer from Nanaimo attempted to conduct a traffic stop of a white pickup,” said Ron MacDonald of IIO. “The pickup truck did not stop and continued away from there. We also know the officer was able to observe it a short time later driving southbound on highway number 1 in the northbound lane.”
There is no word yet on when the IIO will finish its investigation.
An acquaintance says Timothy is the father of two children.
Kendall Hanson
