Husband Blasts Search Policy after Wife Waits in WA Wreck

Hours after his wife was found clinging to life in a wrecked car, Tom Rider struggled to restrain his rage at the King County Sheriff's Office, which on Friday defended its decision to wait five days to ask for the cell phone records that led to her rescue.

For a week, 33-year-old Tanya Rider - her left leg crushed in the Sept. 20 wreck - hung upside down inside her mangled Honda SUV. Thousands of drivers passed by on state Route 169 only feet away, but did not see the car, which fell 12 feet down a brushy hillside.

Tom Rider, who lives with his wife in Maple Valley, said Friday that a court order for records from his wife's cell phone provider to determine where she last used her phone could have pointed rescuers to her last Saturday - but a Sheriff's Office procedure prevented investigators from requesting the records.

"The policy that tied those officers' hands nearly cost my wife her life," said Rider, his voice shaky with anger at a news conference Friday morning. "That's something that should never happen."

But Sheriff's Office spokesman Bob Conner said that while he understands why emotions are running high, investigators needed evidence that Rider, who was found Thursday afternoon, was in danger before seeking a court order for the records.

"There was nothing in the first 24 hours that was out of the ordinary or strange," Conner said.

It is standard operating procedure to wait a day in cases involving adults unless circumstances dictate greater urgency, he said, adding that the office responds immediately when the missing person is younger than 12.

While he could not provide statistics, Conner said in his 20 years as a sheriff's deputy he has responded to "a great many missing persons cases," and often, people reappear within 24 hours after "blowing off steam following an argument" or "taking a break."

The biggest trend or growth in missing persons reports is in the elderly, particularly those with dementia and Alzheimer's, law enforcement officials say.

Tanya Rider's ordeal apparently began on her drive home Sept. 20 after working a night shift at a Bellevue Fred Meyer. Her husband said his two jobs as a construction superintendent and night pizza delivery driver meant he and Tanya didn't see each other much during the week, so he didn't suspect anything was wrong until early Sept. 22, when his wife wasn't home from work.

He phoned the police immediately, but said a day passed before he reached anyone willing to help him. Rider said King County authorities should have sought an order for her cell phone records the day he reported his wife missing.

"What did it take them once they made it a criminal investigation, an hour? Two?" he said.

It wasn't until Thursday - nearly a week after she was reported missing - that investigators obtained the order for Tanya Rider's cellular provider to determine her phone's position, Tom Rider said.

Wireless companies receive thousands of such requests each year, and routinely grant them, Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Gloria Taylor said Friday. Technicians determine which cellular tower the missing person's phone last used, then pass the location on to authorities.

Investigators also said Tom Rider told them that only his wife had access to several bank accounts, a claim Rider disputes, but when investigators saw activity on those accounts, they assumed Tanya Rider was using the cards.

State Patrol spokesman Jeff Merrill said the suspected financial transactions made investigators think Tanya Rider wasn't in any danger.

"You can't just track somebody down using their cell phone just because you want to know where they're at," said Merrill, whose agency was not part of the search, but investigated the crash. "The law is designed to protect the rights of those who may not want to be found."

On Friday, Tom Rider did praise missing persons specialist Jan Rhodes and a 911 dispatcher he knows only as "Operator Number 65" - the first emergency workers who he said took his requests for help seriously - as well as the searchers who reached his wife. "Once the gloves came off, they did an outstanding job."

There is no standardized statewide procedure for law-enforcement response to missing person reports, said Jim LaMunyon, deputy director for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.

"Timelines for taking reports of missing people are much shorter than they used to be," LaMunyon said, adding that some missing persons don't want to be found. "With adults, you don't know - they can move a long way in a few hours. Some want to disappear."

In Tanya Rider's case, "it turns out it's an accident, but you just don't know with an adult," he said.

Her condition is precarious, Dr. Lisa McIntyre at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center said Friday.

She has a broken collarbone and a dislocated shoulder. Large pressure sores erupted along her lap and shoulder, where the car's safety belt held her in place during the ordeal. Crushing injuries to her left leg have caused muscles in her leg to die; the dead tissue flooded her system with toxins, which combined with the effects of dehydration, ravaged Rider's kidneys. Her kidneys, McIntyre said, have stopped functioning.

Still, McIntyre said she's hopeful that Rider won't need a breathing machine in a few days, and that fluids being pumped into her intravenously will heal her kidneys.

"She's not out of the woods," the doctor said. "The fact that she's young and otherwise healthy helped her a great deal."

Rider's dramatic ordeal, while not the same, is similar to the case of Laura Hatch, who was reported missing in 2004 after she did not return home from an Oct. 2 party. The high school junior was found alive eight days later in her car 150 feet down an embankment along Northeast Union Hill Road in Redmond. At that time, doctors marveled that Hatch survived the crash and remained alive without food or water.

The Riders recently bought a house, and worked multiple jobs to make ends meet, Tom Rider said. He'd ordered a furniture set as surprise for Tanya, which was due to arrive at their new home Wednesday for their eighth wedding anniversary.

The house and another property have meant more bills for the Riders, and more work.

But Rider said he always knew his wife hadn't run away. And, while he said she has lived with depression since high school, he never believed she would take her own live.

"This is a woman who has battled her whole life," Rider said, his tone cracking with emotion. "And now she's battling more."

P-I reporter Levi Pulkkinen

can be reached at 206-448-8348

or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com

PRAYER SERVICE

A prayer service for Tanya Rider is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at Lake Wilderness Park Lodge, located in Maple Valley. Directions to the park are available at ci.maple-valley.wa.us.