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MILLCREEK — Three days after a truck crashed into patrons outside a Starbucks, killing a woman and injuring four others in a scene police called "traumatizing" for those involved, investigators are still trying to understand what ultimately caused the wreck.
Friday morning, 48-year-old Joslyn Spilsbury was killed when a truck traveling at a high rate of speed jumped a curb to the parking lot at the strip mall located at 4744 S. Highland Drive and struck her and two others sitting outside the Starbucks there. She leaves behind a 3-year-old daughter.
The driver, 34-year-old West Walker, of Oakley, Summit County, was critically injured in the crash, as were two men sitting outside along with Spilsbury. Two children in the truck, ages 6 and 7, suffered minor injuries.
It wasn't clear as of Monday what may have caused Walker to crash.
"We believe it may be a medical issue with the information we were initially provided ... (but) we don't have anything to confirm that," Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera told KSL.
Rivera said initial signs pointing to a possible medical episode included the lack of braking, as well as the unlikely path of the vehicle from an alleyway across the street, across a heavily trafficked road and over a curb.
"We don't have anything different to tell us anything different at the moment," she said. "We're going to be waiting for toxicology reports and that is going to take a little while."
The sheriff said there was "nothing there on scene ... that told us it was an intentional act," but that "until our investigation's done we don't know either way."
We don't have anything different to tell us anything different at the moment. We're going to be waiting for toxicology reports and that is going to take a little while.
–Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera
One of the two men injured along with Spilsbury was still in the hospital Monday, Rivera said, though she didn't know his updated condition. Neither of their names have been released, and their relationships to Spilsbury and each other remain unclear.
Walker was released from the hospital Monday, according to Intermountain Healthcare spokesman Jason Carlton.
But Walker "is not being very helpful," Rivera said, so his recovery hasn't sped up the investigation.
"He's asked for an attorney, so we're going to have to work through that," she said. "Sometimes people do that and we're prepared to work with them (that way). We just want to figure out what happened."
Because Walker has added an attorney to the mix, Rivera added, "We just have to wait ... to be able to talk to him."
"If we're not able to talk to him, we'll wait for the toxicology and go from there."
Police are also endeavoring to "find out what was in the vehicle," Rivera said.
