Yakima man's fatal injuries consistent with rollover crash, expert testifies

A forensic pathologist testified Monday that a Yakima man’s injuries were consistent with the rollover crash that investigators believe killed him.

The body of 30-year-old Ryan Holwegner was not discovered for more than 36 hours after the crash outside of Moxee in February 2007.

Four months later, Yakima County prosecutors charged Zachary Sluder, a friend of Holwegner’s, with vehicular homicide.

The trial opened last week in Superior Court and is expected to go to the jury later this week.

From the start, the case was complicated by Sluder’s claim that he was the only one in the vehicle. He told troopers with the Washington State Patrol that he hit a dog and crashed near the intersection of State Route 24 and Derringhoff Road.

Based on that report, troopers searched for the dog, but not Holwegner.

The victim’s friends, who knew he had been out with Sluder, went looking for him near the scene, according to a State Patrol report filed in court.

Holwegner’s father earlier confirmed a report that Sluder’s mother found the body, which was 135 feet away from the scene at the bottom of an embankment.

Defense attorney Chris Tait of Yakima told Judge Michael McCarthy on Monday that he expects to call Sluder’s mother as a witness. Tait declined to discuss the case after court.

The pathologist, Daniel Selove of Everett, Wash., testified that any of several major injuries suffered by Holwegner could have killed  him — probably within a few minutes. Those wounds included heart, lung and artery damage, Selove told the jury.

The injuries, including “road rash,” were consistent with those seen in dozens of rollover victims that he has examined, Selove said.

Troopers said in their arrest report that they had a witness who reported seeing Sluder drive away from the Silver Creek Tavern in Moxee minutes before the crash. Holwegner was his passenger, the witness said.

Troopers suspected that Sluder had been drinking, but he refused a blood test after being taken to a Yakima hospital for treatment of a broken left clavicle.

Ryan Holwegner grew up in the Yakima area and was employed in the parts department at Owens Cycle, the city’s Harley-Davidson dealership. He was a 1996 graduate of East Valley High School.

  • Information from Yakima Herald-Republic archives is included in this report.

• Mark Morey can be reached at 577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.

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