Husband of Woman Killed in Wrong-Way Crash had been Concerned for Kids' Safety, DPS Says

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The husband of a woman killed in a wrong-way crash on the Loop 101 freeway on Thursday had been worried about the safety of her and their children just prior to the crash, officials said.

The Glendale woman, Patricia Evans, was killed along with her 6-year-old son in the collision, which occurred just after 8 p.m. on the 101 near the 51st Avenue freeway interchange. The woman's other son, 4, survived but is in critical condition.

We'll just go ahead and say it: When we learned this morning that Evans had the 6-year-old in the front passenger seat without a seat belt on, his younger brother unrestrained in the back seat, our first thought was, that doesn't sound like an accident.

Evans didn't have a seat belt on, either, when she began driving east in the westbound lanes of the 101. Cops say her 2000 Honda sedan ran head-on into an SUV, whose two occupants were injured.

Sure, severe impairment by drugs or alcohol could be responsible for both the woman's choice not to buckle up her and the kids, and to pull a major blunder like driving against the grain of traffic. And impairment of some kind may have been a contributing factor, officials say.

What happened just after the wreck seems telling, though:

The woman's husband showed up at the collision scene last night, saying he'd been looking for his wife, says Officer Bob Bailey, a spokesman with the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

She'd left the house just moments before the crash, he told paramedics, and he'd been worried about her and the kids' safety.

We'll be interested to hear more facts on this one.