Eight dead in bus crash; critically injured driver arrested

Authorities named the eight people killed Sunday in a charter bus wreck in Colusa County, but much about the accident remains unclear – including the backgrounds of the bus driver and the bus company.

The California Highway Patrol this morning released the names of five women and one man who died when the bus overturned on Lone Star Road on its way to the Colusa Casino Resort. Stephen Bell, the assistant chief of CHP's Northern Division, identified among the dead as 68-year-old Daniel Cobb Sr. of Sacramento and Modesto, who is believed to have owned the bus.

Also killed were five Sacramento women – Lou Her, 68; Muang Saephanh, 68; Khou Yang, 67; Meuay Saelee, 74; and Fin Saechae, 64. In addition, killed were 85-year-old Xee Vang, a male whom is believed to be from Sacramento and 60-year-old Ma Vang, whose hometown and gender are not immediately known.

Along with the eight killed, 35 people were injured in the crash.

Initially, 10 passengers were believed to have been killed, but the CHP later revised the number of dead down to eight.

CHP placed the bus driver, 52-year-old Quintin Joey Watts, under arrest on suspicion of felony driving under the influence. It was not immediately known whether Watts was under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both, Bell said.

Watts was gravely injured in the wreck and was being treated at Woodland Memorial Hospital.

"He's in extremely critical condition – if he makes it," CHP Officer Bob Kays said today.

Watts has a felony criminal record but has no listed DUI convictions in California, according to records from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Watts' most recent conviction was June 20, 2007, when he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison, but was given credit for 132 days for time served and good behavior. He was paroled Dec. 18, 2007.

In 1998, Watts was convicted of possession of marijuana for sale and possession of a destructive device. He was sentenced to two years in state prison and was paroled after serving one. Watts was convicted of check fraud, credit card theft and distributing phony telecommunication devices in 1996. He was sentenced to more than three years in prison on those charges and was paroled after eight months.

Investigators are struggling to unravel the bus's murky recent history. The Texas license plates it carried were invalid, and no federal Department of Transportation registration number could be found, according to Kays.

Watts had a commercial driver’s license in California but lacked state certification required to drive a passenger bus, Bell told reporters at the CHP’s Williams bureau.

The bus was painted with the Greyhound colors and the company's name was on the side of the coach, but Landreth said the vehicle was sold two years ago to Valley Transit Company.

However, a Valley Transit representative said the bus did not belong to the firm.

Other media reports linked the bus to Cobb – one of the dead – and an outfit named Cobbs Bus Service. California Public Utilities Commission records place the business in Modesto, with a Sacramento mailing address.

An online classified ad at Kijiji.com in Cobb’s name, dated Thursday, asked for a charter bus driver and promised “all work is within 100 mile radius.” The voice-mail box was full at the phone number listed.

The bus carried 42 passengers from Sacramento to Colusa Casino Resort, located on Highway 45 three miles north of Colusa, Landreth said. All the passengers were believed to be from the Sacramento area and all are believed to have been found, according to Bell, who said officers combed the crash site with helicopter-mounted infrared sensors overnight in search of more passengers.

Landreth said many of the passengers are of Asian descent, and officers said language barriers are slowing the process of identifying and interviewing survivors. Twelve of the injured have not yet been identified, Bell said.

The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday, south of Highway 20 between Colusa and Williams at Lone Star and Abel roads, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Pat Landreth. A witness told CHP the bus, traveling north on Lone Star, lost control, flipped into the air, cartwheeled and landed in a ditch.

The witness, off-duty sheriff's Sgt. Merced Corona, told Landreth the bus swerved to one side of the road, overcorrected to the other side before it flipped and rolled. He said "several bodies were thrown from the bus." Skid marks the bus left behind during the accident stretched nearly half a mile, according to Clader, the CHP spokeswoman.

Corona then assisted with rescue efforts that continued into the night.

"He was pulling bodies from the mud before they drowned," Landreth said. "It all happened right in front of him."

Corona told the CHP no other vehicles were on the road.

Water and mud were standing in the ditch where the bus came to a stop on its wheels. The roof of the vehicle was caved in, windows were broken and the body of the bus was mangled.

Rescue crews searched the surrounding fields for additional victims with flashlights Sunday night. Lone Star Road remained closed until about 5:30 a.m. today as investigators finished their work and a crane lifted the wreckage from the site, to be taken to a yard in Williams.

Marshall said a master mutual aid plan was enacted for the bus crash. Emergency personnel from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to the scene.

Victims were transported by helicopter and ambulance to area hospitals in Chico, Woodland, Oroville, Sacramento, Marysville and Roseville.

The two-lane road where the crash occurred cuts through rice fields in central Colusa County. The pavement and skies were clear and dry at the time of the incident. The road has gravel shoulders and ditches on each side.

Landreth said it was legal for the bus to be on Lone Star Road, a popular route for motorists, including bus drivers, heading to Colusa Casino Resort from the Sacramento area.

Landreth recalled one other major bus accident that left four injured.

According to the Appeal-Democrat archives, 39 people were on board a Greyhound bus headed to Sacramento from Redding on Interstate 5 on July 1, 2005, when it ran off the road.

Landreth said there were several differences between that incident and Sunday's crash. He said Sunday's crash was on a smaller road and crews had to maneuver through water and mud, which makes recovery efforts difficult.

"Here we've got a bus, in the water and it's mangled," he said.

Anyone with information about the bus accident, or who may have had relatives aboard, is asked to call CHP Officer Bob Kays at 473-2821.

At a glance

Emergency personnel from Glenn, Lake, Yolo and Sutter counties responded to assist Colusa County agencies for a bus crash Sunday night.

WHAT: A Valley Transit Company-owned charter bus carrying 42 passengers from Sacramento to the Colusa Casino Resort on Highway 45 north of Colusa rolled off a rural road in central Colusa County.

CASUALTIES: Eight dead, 35 injured

WHERE: Lone Star and Abel roads, south of Highway 20 between Colusa and Williams

WHEN: 6:18 p.m. Sunday

Source: California Highway Patrol, Colusa County coroner’s office

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Andrea Koskey at 749-4709 or akoskey@appealdemocrat.com, and reporter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com. Contact Colusa County Sun-Herald reporter Robert Parsons at 458-2121 or rparsons@tcnpress.com.