Judge hears from tearful family member, keeps $2 million bail for driver in Hwy. 97 DUII crash that killed family of 4
(Update: Adding video, Ross appears in court, judge refuses to reduce $2 million bail)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – After a tearful plea from the victims' family, a judge rejected a defense lawyer’s request Wednesday and kept bail at $2 million for a Montana man facing four counts of manslaughter and DUII in an October crash on Highway 97 north of Redmond that killed four members of a Troutdale family.
Jesse Carl Ross, 43, of Corvallis, Montana, turned himself in at the Deschutes County Jail Tuesday evening on a warrant issued after he was indicted earlier this month on four counts of first-degree manslaughter, DUII, reckless driving and reckless endangering charges in the fiery mid-October crash.
Ross was driving a Chevy Silverado northbound on the highway around 7:30 p.m. on October 12th when he crossed the center line, sideswiped a southbound semi-truck and trailer and struck a Toyota RAV4 driven by Gary Rutledge, 57, head-on, Oregon State Police reported at the time.
The SUV caught fire and became fully engulfed after the crash that occurred about two miles south of Terrebonne.
Rutledge, his wife Michelle, 53, and their two children, Kate, 15, and Ryan, 17, both Reynolds High School students, died at the scene. They had been on their way to Central Oregon to view the annular eclipse.
“All fatal traffic crashes are tragic. When an entire family is lost, the tragic becomes the horrific,” OSP Public Information Officer Captain Kyle Kennedy wrote at the time.
At Wednesday’s initial court appearance, Deputy District Attorney Rosalie Beaumont acknowledged that Ross had no prior criminal history but asked the judge to keep bail at $2 million, based on the severity of the alleged charges and risk to public safety. She also asked the judge to impose conditions that if released he not use drugs or associate with people who do or frequent places where they are used, bought or sold.
Defense attorney Bryan Donahue acknowledged the “horrific tragedy” but noted that Ross has signed a waiver of extradition and said he now has Ross’s passport in his possession. He also said that along with use of controlled substances, which he had been given few details of by prosecutors so far, his blood-alcohol content was found to be “zero zero.”
Ross sustained “very serious injuries” in the crash, Donahue said, and needs to travel to California to care for his disabled wife. He asked that his bail be reduced to $500,000.
Beaumont said the $2 million amount was set by a judge when a warrant was issued and urged it not be reduced.
“This killed an entire family,” she told the judge, noting that Ross was found to have “a number of controlled substances in his system and had consumed alcohol,” though a low amount, tested at “barely .01. He does reside in Montana, has family in California and has no local connections.”
The defense attorney said Ross was in California when the warrant was issued, for a medical appointment for himself and his wife while with family. Once notified of the indictment, Donahue said they “organized to have him come up voluntarily” and turn himself in, rather than law enforcement have to execute the warrant.
Donahue said Ross “turned himself in fairly quickly” and repeated that he has no criminal history. He also pointed out that the blood-alcohol test was taken an hour after the crash, so it was “fairly accurate.”
A member of the Rutledge family asked the judge by phone not to go along with bail reduction.
“He may not be a flight risk to you, but he is a flight risk to us,” she said. “We lost a whole family.”
“He voluntarily got into that vehicle that day,” the woman said. “Four lives are gone because he made that choice to get in that car that day.”
She said the family has been told Ross had “four different kinds of drugs in his system.”
“I don’t think $500,000 is enough,” the family member said. “I’m sorry, but he took our family away from us.”
Judge Emerson agreed and kept the bail at $2 million, along with the conditions prosecutors requested.
Prosecution and defense attorneys will confer on scheduling the next court date, and Emerson said the case is assigned to Judge Randy Miller.
