PITTSFIELD TOWNSHIP, MI - A drunken driver spoke to police just minutes before he crossed the center line of an Ann Arbor-area road, killing himself and another person in December 2017, police reports show.
Desten Houge, 32, of Ypsilanti, was helped by two officers after he initially lost control of his vehicle and it went into a snow-filled ditch just after 4 p.m. on Dec. 30, according to police reports.
Dashboard camera videos obtained by The Ann Arbor News show Houge standing in the ditch and telling one officer, "I can't explain this s**t," of that first crash. He continues talking to the officers and later falls once in the snow and is helped up as a tow truck arrives to pull his vehicle back on to the road, the videos show.
Police did not give Houge a field sobriety test.
But Houge had a blood-alcohol content of 0.24 percent - three times Michigan's legal limit for driving - when he crashed with Lake Jacobson, 55, of Pittsfield Township within the next hour, less than a mile away, the reports show.
The revelation, the results of an autopsy, surprised officials, Pittsfield Township Director of Public Safety Matt Harshberger said.
There were no signs Houge was drunk when police spoke with him and no indication of any need for a sobriety test, Harshberger said, adding they "processed it as they would any crash."
Houge's mother, Dianne Houge, disputes that her son was drunk. Jacobson's husband, Mark Jacobson, declined to comment at length but said of his wife, "We miss her."
Officials believe factors including potholes, vehicle damage to Houge's car and road conditions also led to the fatal crash, Harshberger said. The report does not indicate any alcohol or alcohol containers were found in Houge's vehicle.
"This was an extremely unfortunate, tragic situation," Harshberger said. "I feel terrible about it, but I don't see how we would have done anything different."
'Look what you did to me, bro'
Desten Houge planned to begin his New Year's Eve celebrations early, his supervisor told police, according to the report.
The day of the crash, Houge got off work at the Faurecia Plant in Saline between 3:20 p.m. and 3:29 p.m. He was a good employee who'd recently been hired back after being terminated for attendance issues, his supervisor told police.
Houge was a loving father, family man and a "gentle giant," family told The Ann Arbor News.
Houge was supposed to go out with a coworker that night and the two men "hung out" in a parking lot after work on Dec. 30 "catching up," the supervisor relayed to police. She said the coworker showed her a photo Houge had sent him of Houge's car stuck in the ditch after his first crash.
The text reportedly read, "Look what you did to me, bro."
Houge's 2000 Chrysler Concorde went into a ditch along a curve in the roadway, eastbound on Michigan Avenue just east of Warner Road, according to a traffic report filed by the Pittsfield Township Police Department.
Pittsfield Township police Sgt. Matthew Hornbeck arrived first to the scene and Officer Samuel Bradley arrived as a firetruck pulled away, Bradley said in his fatal crash report.
In the dashboard footage, Houge can be heard telling police he was sliding while driving before the crash.
"I can't explain this s**t," Houge said on the recording. "It just happened."
He told police his insurance may be "faulty," to which Bradley said "whatever." Director Harshberger said Houge did receive a citation for lack of insurance.
Houge told police he'd bought the car for $600 after turning in a previous car after a divorce. Though the audio is unclear, Houge appears to call the car a "piece of s**t," before police redaction covers audio from the scene.
Video shows Houge slip and fall in the snow at one point. Hornbeck helped him up.
In the traffic report, Houge's condition was described as appearing normal.
He had been going too fast on the 55 mph road, the report stated. Snow was blowing, but Michigan Avenue was dry, and Houge's car suffered "functional damage."
In the fatal crash report, both Bradley and Hornbeck said Houge had no signs of impairment when they first encountered him.
Bradley left the scene of the first crash once the tow truck driver pulling Houge's car out said he was all set, Bradley reported. He returned to the police station briefly, then traveled back past where Houge had crashed - noting Houge's vehicle and the tow truck were then on Campbell Road, off Michigan Avenue.
About two minutes later, Bradley was called to the fatal crash.
Less than a mile from home
Lake Jacobson would've been on her way to see a friend.
That's what her husband told police while doctors worked on her in a St. Joseph Mercy Health System operating room on the night of Dec. 30.
He'd later describe her to the News as a mother and a volunteer who worked to "make things better."
She was less than a mile away from her home, located in a subdivision off Sauk Trail, when she and Desten Houge met head-on in the westbound lane of Michigan Avenue. She'd just turned onto the road, a witness said in the police report.
One witness told police she saw Houge leaving the scene of the first crash, the tow truck briefly blocking the road, and was surprised at how fast Houge was going since he'd just come from an apparent crash.
Witnesses said the vehicle was rocking more and more as the car sped up, and it began to fishtail. Some said "they could see plastic and other car parts flying off of the vehicle."
Then Houge's eastbound vehicle entered the westbound lane and almost hit another vehicle, but didn't.
The other driver told police he swerved onto the shoulder of the road to avoid a collision. In his rearview, he could see Houge's car on the westbound shoulder, too.
Then, Houge struck Jacobson's vehicle, head on.
The aftermath
Police were called at 5:17 p.m., an hour after Houge's initial crash.
Houge appeared dead at the scene - he wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was unresponsive. Jacobson was alert, but screaming in pain and unable to state what happened, Bradley reported.
Jacobson wouldn't get the chance to tell her side of what happened. She was pronounced dead on Jan. 3, after losing oxygen from a broken neck and going into a vegetative state, her husband told police.
Autopsies, the vehicles and the road told the rest of the story.
Though police initially said it wasn't believed that drugs or alcohol were involved with the crash, Houge was found to have a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit for driving in Michigan, according to his autopsy report. He also had THC in his system - a chemical associated with marijuana.
It's unclear from the report just how fast Houge was driving, but Jacobson's vehicle showed she was driving 36 mph 0.2 seconds before the crash on the 55 mph road.
Both cars had severe damage and the tow truck driver who went to the first crash later told police that the rear sway bar was broken on the vehicle after that incident but, from what he could tell, it was all right to travel on the roadway.
A mechanic later found both rear struts of the vehicle were worn and weak, and both rear sway bar links were broken. The gas tank straps were rusted away and the tank was falling out. Both rear wheels were packed with snow - likely from first crash - and the right front tire had a broken stud and a loose lugnut.
The right-side hubcaps were broken or missing and, days later, on Jan. 5, police found a broken piece of hubcap near a large pothole at the crash site. There were a series of potholes on the eastbound fog line in between the crash site, according to the reports.
The road was described as dry at the first crash site, but slushy on the shoulders and "treacherous" at the second crash site.
"There, more than likely, were a multitude of contributing factors that caused (Houge) to be involved in this fatal crash," Harshberger said.
The investigation
There is no statutory requirement that an officer must use field sobriety testing to investigate an intoxicated driver, said Tim Bourgeois, executive director of the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards.
MCOLES sets professional standards in education, selection, employment, licensing, license revocation, and funding in law enforcement and criminal justice, in the public and private sectors.
Police academies today include a 24-hour course for detection of intoxicated drivers and Standardized Field Sobriety Tests, Bourgeois said. The course is also offered to incumbent officers, who were trained with a non-standardized method prior to the implementation in academies, he said.
All Pittsfield Township officers are trained and certified in the standardized testing, and the department has two certified instructors to make sure officers maintain updates and certifications, Harshberger said.
His department does not have a policy requiring officers to conduct field sobriety testing in specific situations and sobriety tests are not conducted when reasonable suspicion is lacking, he said.
Bourgeois was not aware of all the information in the Pittsfield Township case, but said in the course of his career - which spanned more than 40 years before joining MCOLES - he's heard of other incidents of intoxicated drivers not being arrested when stopped by police.
"Sometimes it might be more difficult than people might know for officers to make that determination in the field," he said.
Harshberger said he does not have evidence to suggest Houge was an alcoholic, but when asked about Houge's ability to function with such a high BAC said he's seen alcoholics operate normally with a high BAC.
Houge's mother repeatedly stated her son was not drunk and did not have a drinking problem. She also questioned why police and the tow truck driver let her son drive a damaged vehicle away from the first crash, though Harshberger said that it's common, if a vehicle is drivable.
Harshberger said his officers are good at spotting signs of an intoxicated individual, but there weren't any at the first crash scene.
Conditions that day also could have complicated matters, he said, as blowing wind could have masked smells of alcohol, the slippery roads and snow could have masked trouble walking or operating, and potholes and slippery conditions could explain a crash.
Harshberger said police do a lot of second-guessing in situations like this, but he doesn't have a solution unless police run sobriety tests at every crash site, big and small.
"There is no easy way to explain an incident like this. It's absolutely tragic all the way around for everyone involved," he said. "Sometimes there is no explaining it. It's just sad that now two families have to deal with the losses of the loved ones."
Editor's note: This story has been updated with information regarding a citation issued to Houge regarding his lack of insurance.