Vampire Slayer Killed

[bloodrayne]

Toll Plaza Victim Had Troubled Past

Driver was confined after stabbing deaths of parents

The driver of a van that barreled into a building at the Bay Bridge toll plaza -- killing himself and a 71-year-old artist in the passenger seat -- had stabbed his parents to death in 1989 in a psychotic episode in San Luis Obispo, authorities said Sunday.

Killed in Saturday's wreck were Ronald Wade McClave, 39, of Oakland, and his friend Mildred Harris of Emeryville. They were on their way to an art exhibition in San Francisco where they both planned to display dozens of paintings. Harris probably had McClave drive her 1992 Chevrolet Astrovan because she was afraid to drive on freeways, according to her children.

McClave was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the stabbing deaths of his parents, Helen and Larry McClave, at the family home in San Luis Obispo. Wade McClave had been hospitalized shortly before the killings after telling doctors that his parents were Vampires.

Authorities later determined he had not received the proper medication before he was discharged from the hospital. He was institutionalized for nine years before he was conditionally released in Northern California, the reports said.

Law officers made no suggestion Sunday that the crash into the Caltrans administration building at the toll plaza was due to McClave's history of mental illness. The California Highway Patrol said it was investigating the driver's past for clues as to what caused the crash.

Just before 2 p.m. Saturday, Harris' van drove at more than 65 mph up a ramp leading to the toll plaza parking lot off westbound Interstate 80. The van clipped a woman and her daughter who were standing by as their disabled car was loaded onto a flatbed tow truck. The woman sprained her ankle while turning away from the speeding van, while her daughter was hit and broke her ankle.

Meanwhile, the van sped toward the Caltrans administrative building, and without turning or slowing, bounced up a ramp and into a closed garage used by armored cars picking up bridge tolls. It crashed through a concrete wall and only stopped when it hit an emergency generator. The authorities found no skid marks to suggest the driver ever applied his brakes.

"It is quite unusual as far as the speeds that were involved and the distance traveled. The van clipped pedestrians and went a quarter of a mile. The vehicle never slowed," CHP spokesman Sgt. Wayne Ziese said Sunday.

CHP officials said investigators believe the crash was not related to alcohol or illicit drugs, but have not ruled out a mechanical failure, a heart attack, a seizure or an intentional crash. They were also retracing the driver's movements in the 24 hours before the crash to see whether he may have been suicidal.

CHP investigators expect to spend today examining the impounded remains of Harris' Astrovan for clues, Ziese said.

McClave's girlfriend, Shawna Gubera, 24, said Sunday that she was aware of his background but did not believe it played any role in Saturday's crash.

"I can guarantee he would not intentionally drive the van into a place. He would not create an accident. That is not his personality," she said. "He would not do this because he lives the kind of life where he understands that people can go through tough times and that is not a reason to end your life."

Gubera would not say whether McClave was on medication or in therapy, but she said that he "always took care of himself, and he let others take care of him."

Harris' children said late Sunday that they were unaware of McClave's history of mental illness. They said they were troubled to hear about McClave's past.

"He seemed very gentle. ... I can't think of him in that way at all," said David Harris, 49. He said his mother knew McClave for about a year, and the two exhibited paintings together several times. "I feel like throwing up right now. It's not sinking in yet."

The San Luis Obispo Police Department late Sunday said that it was asked to make a death notification to McClave's brother, who still lives in the house where his parents were killed.

"I'd sure be interested in finding out what happened, given the background," said San Luis Obispo Police Sgt. Jim Hays, who as a patrol officer in March 1989 investigated the stabbing.

Hays said that officers responding to a 911 hang-up in the middle of the night found Helen McClave, 47, stabbed to death in her driveway, and spotted Wade McClave through an upstairs window. As officers were about to storm the house, the 24-year-old man pedaled out of the garage on a bicycle and was tackled, Hays said. The officers then found Larry McClave, a 49-year-old on the city's Architectural Review Commission, dead in the kitchen. The couple had been stabbed more than 40 times in total.

"The experts we hired came back and said if there is a classic example of someone who is legally insane, it's Wade McClave," prosecutor Ron Abrams told the San Luis Obispo Tribune in 2002.