ISP clears Marty Allen Ward
two years after fatal accident

Allen Ward learned to drive on the Benewah Road. His mother taught him. A narrow county road that runs east-west through the Benewah Valley, the thoroughfare is a main artery for logging truck traffic. Pickups and speeding cars rattling to town on the wrong side of the road to avoid potholes aren't uncommon. "He knew the merits of staying on his side of the road," Allen's mother, Mary Yetter, said. "Out there in the Benewah," she said, "you don't take it lightly... driving on the wrong side of the road." Allen's wife Maggie remembers her husband's inclination to concentrate his driving away from the centerline. She and her husband had only been married a month, but they had logged a lot of miles together. His tendency to favor the roads shoulder over its camber is a vital part of the memory her husband has become. "He drove so much on that side of the road I sometimes felt the white line was between us," she said. Two years ago, a car wreck on Highway 95 drove a wedge between the couple forever. Marty Allen Ward, 22, died in the head-on collision. His 21 year old wife survived. The driver of the other vehicle charged that Allen had crossed the centerline and Idaho troopers confirmed the claim. Almost two years after the Nov. 1998 wreck, the Idaho State Police reversed its original findings. Marty Allen Ward who learned to drive on the Benewah Road had held firm his mother's lessons. He was in his lane about a quarter mile north of Tensed when a southbound Dodge pickup driven by Michael R. Damery of Moscow crossed the middle line and slammed head-on into the Ward's blue Chevrolet pickup, according to an ammended report by ISP. The two vehicles came to a thunderous stop in the northbound lane leaving Marty Allen Ward dead, his wife, and the two occupants of the southbound vehicle, were unconscious. At first, state troopers investigating the accident had blamed the young newlywed for the wreck because skid marks behind the Ward truck seemed to indicate the pickup had crossed the centerline and abruptly veered back. Not anymore. Investigators found that a southbound car had made the skid striations. They were old. They weren't even from the Nov. 8 crash. The evidence at the crash scene "indicates Mr. Ward was hit in his travel lane," Sergeant Tim Johnson of the state police said. The original investigators had misinterpreted the marks, Sgt. Johnson said. "Mr. Ward was not at fault." he said. Maggie remembers seeing the southbound pickup in her husband's lane seconds before the crash. Her statement filed two days later, while she was at Gritman Memorial Hospital recovering from injuries she sustained in the wreck, states plainly what she saw. "The (oncoming) truck was across the yellow line in our lane," she wrote in an accident statement. The memory was vivid. "She told me the exact same thing in the emergency room," Mrs. Yetter said. "...and every day since then." For two years she attempted to clear the name of the man she married. She remembers well. That day, she and her husband were on their way to the Benewah in their 1976 pickup to meet family. They had stopped at the Tensed store where Maggie purchased a burrito and water. Her husband ("we call him Allen") bought a soda. They drove north through the gray day that afternoon. Allen didn't open his pop. "He wanted to wait until we got on the gravel road," Maggie said. She had lowered her head to take a bite of the burrito. It was raining a little. The couple's dog Daisy sat on the pickup's bench seat between them. Maggie lowered her head and when she looked up another pickup was there. Its broad hood and headlamps too. It was coming fast. There was no time to react. The petite woman, who has become a lightning rod for her husband's cause, suffered a severe gash on her head in the wreck. It required 35 stitches to mend. She was bruised "all over the rest of my entire body." She had black eyes and a wrenched spine. The bills piled up after the accident. They remain unpaid. Michael Damery, 49 who was found responsible for the accident, wrote in his witness statement a day after the crash that he was "driving in my lane heading south on highway (sic) 95 at about 2:30 p.m." The impact, he wrote "occurred in my lane." Two accident reconstructionists -- one hired by Maggie, and another employed by the state -- found the Moscow man's claim to be false. Troopers dismissed his claim only after he sued the young widow for damages sustained in the accident he had caused. The bills Maggie was made to foot, her bills, cost about $5,000. She has filed a civil suit against Mr. Damery's insurance company. "Nobody's paid for it yet," she said. Mrs. Yetter who has four sons in addition to Allen, wasn't anywhere near the accident scene on November 8, 1998. Her scars are inside. "I want to see this man charged," she said. "he killed someone with his negligence. He should at least be made to carry it on his record." But the charges, if they were to be filed, would be misdemeanor charges according to the Benewah County Prosecutor Doug Payne. He said the statute of limitations for a misdemeanor manslaughter charge has run out. In order to file felony charges, gross negligence on Mr. Damery's part would have to be proven. The statute of limitations is five years for a felony, and one year for a misdemeanor. Although the family of Allen Ward has won a battle over evidence, the comfort gained with the victory is fitful. The man who killed the son and husband may not be sentenced. Maggie works in Spokane now. She still lives at her Mom's house in Tensed though, and like her mom, daily passes the stretch of highway near a curve where she lost her husband. (He was a people person," Mary Yetter said. Some people bring home stray animals, he collected people.") The stretch of road with its sweeping curve is where Maggie and Allen's last moments were spent together in an old truck with a dog on a rainy day in November when, as she wrote in her statement "Allen Ward was driving north. He had both hands on the steering wheel and was looking straight ahead driving at about 50 - 55 miles per hour." "Allen," she wrote, "was very close to the white line in our lane." -- Ralph Bartholdt 11/01/00