Victims identified in I-40 rampage
Trucker taken into police custody

Crews work Friday to empty the contents of two tractor-trailer rigs involved in a fatal incident Thursday night near Mile Marker 65 on Interstate 40. An Arizona man was killed and another seriously injured in the incident. (Photo by Jerry Wilson/Independent)

By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

GRANTS — The 38-year-old Tennessee truck driver who allegedly caused multiple accidents on Interstate 40 Thursday night resulting in the death of one man was in police custody Friday.

James W. Christian Jr., of Alexandria, Tenn., was the driver of a 1999 Freightliner semi-tractor trailer rig, which allegedly forced cars off the road and slammed into the rear of a 2004 Volvo semi-tractor rig killing the passenger in the truck and critically injuring the driver. Jose Figueroa, 40, of El Mirage, Ariz., was a passenger in a 2004 Volvo truck operated by Swift Trucking. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver, Fred Angwenyi, 39, of Peoria, Ariz., was med-evaced by helicopter to Cibola General Hospital in critical condition.

Angwenyi remained in Cibola General Hospital as of Friday night.

The force of the crash apparently sheared the rear axles off from the trailer of the Volvo. The axles lay beside the trailer in a ditch, grim testaments to the ferocity of the crash.

Christian, meanwhile, was taken by ambulance to Cibola General Hospital Thursday night with minor injuries.

Hospital officials released him Friday afternoon, but Christian did not leave on his own. He was taken away in police custody.

New Mexico State Police Spokesman Jimmy Glascock said charges are pending against Christian.

A spokesperson from the 11th Judicial District Attorney's Office in Gallup on Friday said the case has to be assigned to an assistant district attorney, who will decide which formal charges to file in the case. Christian could face charges up to, and including, vehicular homicide.

The accident happened approximately at 8:55 p.m. Thursday near Mile Marker 65, in the east bound lanes of Interstate 40. The area is in McKinley County and is just a few miles from the Cibola County Line and 22 miles west of Grants.

The accident tied up traffic for hours in the east bound lanes of Interstate 40.

Glascock said witnesses reported that between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., Christian was driving recklessly in the parking lot of the Pilot Truck Stop near Continental Divide east of Gallup. Glascock said witnesses reported seeing Christian then leave the parking lot and head east on I-40 at a high rate of speed. Records show Christian was supposed to be on a run from Tennessee to California, but for some reason he turned back east, toward Grants.

During the frenzied ride down the interstate at least five other vehicles were either hit, or side-swiped, police said. Others were allegedly forced off the road, Glascock added.

Police radios began to buzz about what was going on in the east bound lanes of Interstate 40, at 8:43 p.m..

Glascock said witnesses saw Christian come from behind the Volvo at a high rate of speed and then slam into the trailer. The impact shoved the Volvo through a guardrail and launched the truck and trailer up a steep 20-degree slope on a hill beside the highway. Figueroa and Angwenyhi were trapped for about an hour in the mangled cab of the Volvo while rescue crews worked feverishly in the frigid night air to free the men. Christian's truck, meanwhile, came to rest on the driver side of the truck with its trailer upright in a jackknife position.

Glascock could not give reasons why the accident happened. He did, however, say drug use, possibly methamphetamine, may have been a contributing factor. Glascock said Christian is being tested for illegal drugs.

Christian is being held in the McKinley County Detention Center in Gallup.

Investigators from the New Mexico State Police and the New Mexico Motor Transportation Division combed the two mangled trucks all day Friday as the wreckage remained on the hillside and beside the highway. The motor transportation investigators are doing post-crash inspections of the commercial motor vehicles in the crash and other matters relating to commercial motor vehicles.

At 5:30 p.m. Friday a huge wrecker was parked near the cab of the death truck, poised to remove the wreckage from the hillside.