Fugitive faces felony eluding, DUI charges after 105 mph- crash in August

CASPER, Wyo. — A 20-year-man was arrested Tuesday on a warrant related to a police chase and crash last summer that resulted in traumatic brain injuries for two passenger and broken bones for all occupants.

Phillip Angel Gaspar, 20, had reportedly gone to his native California after learning about the warrant last fall and returned to Casper only this week, Chief Deputy District Attorney Blaine Nelson told the circuit court judge at Gaspar’s initial appearance on Wednesday. The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office had issued a public notice in November seeking Gaspar’s whereabouts. An anonymous tip reportedly led to his arrest on Tuesday.

According to the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office affidavit, Gaspar was driving his friend’s Chevy Malibu 105 mph just five seconds before crashing almost perpendicular into a concrete barrier at the intersection of F Street and Bryan Stock Trail at 4:01 a.m. on August 13. Surveillance video from a nearby business showed the vehicle vaulting into a light post and barrel rolling through the air until it came to a rest on F Street.

All three occupants were unconscious and had to be extricated when law enforcement and emergency responders arrived at the scene. Three 40-oz cans of malt liquor were found in the front of the vehicle, and Gaspar reportedly had a .136% BAC 50 minutes after the crash. The investigation included a Highway Patrol-assisted extraction of the crashed Malibu’s onboard data.

Gaspar is charged with two counts of DUI resulting in serious bodily injury, aggravated eluding, and being a minor in possession of alcohol. He is presumed innocent unless proven or pleading guilty.  The first two counts carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. The aggravated eluding carries a penalty up to five. 

Law enforcement had responded to multiple locations in the early morning hours of August 13 for calls related to the three friends. Around 1:15 a.m. one of the friends was seen on video shoplifting a $25 bag of beef jerky from the Loaf N Jug on East 2nd Street and South Lennox Street. Less than an hour later, a resident on South Forest Drive reported a rock thrown her window, and an hour after that she saw two young men approaching the home, but they took off in a Pontiac after she yelled at them, according to the affidavit. 

The woman described one of the suspects as having dark curly hair and a white baseball cap, which matched the shoplifting suspect. A white Boston Red Sox cap was later found in the crashed vehicle, along with softball-sized rocks believed to the from the parking lot off K Street where the friends had met up and switched vehicles during the night.

At 3:51, law enforcement responded to a call for two male subjects beating up a third male subject at the Loaf N Jug in Evansville. Statements collected by investigators indicated that Gaspar’s two friends had perpetrated the assault and Gaspar had driven them away before law enforcement arrived.

Around 4:02 a.m., a Casper police sergeant saw a dark-colored passenger car going an estimated 100 mph on South Beverly before it turned onto Yellowstone Highway and headed east. It soon pulled beside an NCSO sergeant’s truck at the stoplight on Curtis St. The deputy followed the car onto Interstate 25 and activated the lights to try and pull over the Malibu, but it sped off. 

The report notes that at the time of the pursuit, law enforcement suspected the occupants of the Malibu of involvement in the earlier calls. Evansville police also gave chase, reaching speeds up to 95 mph. The deputy reportedly backed off the pursuit due to the Malibu’s driving behavior as it exited the interstate onto Bryan Stock Trail and then crashed.

Gaspar himself got several fractures to his ankle and broke a leg, a rib, and a vertebrae in his lower back. The other occupants both got traumatic brain injuries and pelvic fractures. Other injuries included fractures to the face, sternum, collarbone, pelvis, and sacrum. Over a month later, one of the occupants recalled the crash happening just moments after the trio fled the scene of the shoplifting.

Gaspar told the court Wednesday that he had planned to turn himself in, but wanted to spend the holidays with his family in California. He said he has kept touch with his friends who were injured, and they are on good terms.

Nelson said at least one of them is still suffering the effects of the traumatic brain injury and asked that a no-contact order be put in place, as they are now material witnesses in the case. 

Bond was set at $85,000 cash or surety.