Investigation inconclusive in crash that killed State Police capt.

Cashin was killed on 1:45 a.m. on Jan. 28 when his car veered off of northbound Route 1 and hit a wooden utility pole. Cashin was the overnight shift commander for State Police Troop A, whose jurisdiction stretches from Revere to the New Hampshire border. It appears that he may have been heading up Route 1 to look for a reported erratic driver.

The entire State Police press release follows:

The investigation by Massachusetts State Police and the Essex County District Attorney’s Office into the fatal motor vehicle crash involving State Police Capt. Richard J. Cashin has been completed. Capt. Cashin died as a result of injuries suffered when his unmarked cruiser lost control on Route 1 Northbound, went off the highway to the right, and struck a wooden utility pole at approximately 1:45 a.m. Jan. 28, 2009. The investigation, led by State Police detectives assigned to the office of Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, with the assistance of the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section and Troop A of the Massachusetts State Police, examined all the facts and circumstances surrounding the crash that could be known. Troopers collected and examined physical, medical, forensic and witness evidence.

The extensive investigation did not determine conclusively what caused Capt. Cashin to lose control of his 2005 Ford Crown Victoria. Among the factors investigators considered were Capt. Cashin’s physical condition just prior to the crash, the condition of the roadway, and reports that a highway crew had sprayed an anti-icing agent on parts of the roadway earlier in the night in advance of a coming winter storm.

The most revealing physical evidence was a set of yaw marks generated by the cruiser prior to its hitting the utility pole. State Police crash reconstruction investigators located, within the yaw marks, striations that are characteristic of a rotating, sliding tire. Investigators examined Capt. Cashin’s cruiser and found no mechanical defects. All damage to the cruiser correlated to the crash.

Post-mortem examination by the Office of the Medical Examiner revealed no factors that contributed to the crash.

Investigators also examined whether an anti-icing chemical applied to portions of Route 1 prior to an impending snowstorm made the roadway slick. Some studies have found that anti-icing chemicals sometimes increase the slickness of a roadway for a short period of time after application. The investigation into Capt. Cashin’s crash did not establish that the chemical agent used, magnesium chloride, contributed to road slickness in the area where Capt. Cashin lost control of his cruiser.

Circumstantial evidence supports the theory that Capt. Cashin, the overnight shift commander for Troop A, which covers northeastern Massachusetts, may have been heading up Route 1 to look for a reported erratic driver. At 1:42:59 a.m., a motorist called State Police to report an erratic driver heading toward Route 1 from Route 99 in Malden. The report of the erratic driver was broadcast on police radio channels. Less than five minutes later, at 1:47:38, a motorist whose car Capt. Cashin had passed on Route 1 Northbound moments earlier called State Police to report that Capt. Cashin’s car had lost control and crashed further up the highway. That motorist, an off-duty police officer who was interviewed by investigators, made the first call to State Police reporting the crash, stating that the victim was a state trooper.

Based on the proximity of time and location to the report of the erratic operator, and Capt. Cashin’s regular practice of responding to calls himself or backing up other troopers and officers, as well as the fact that his cruiser’s radio was determined to have been on and scanning police channels at the time of the crash, the inference may reasonable be drawn that Capt. Cashin had monitored the report of the erratic driver and was driving up Route 1 to assist in the search for that car.

(Within minutes of the radio transmission, and before Capt. Cashin’s crash was reported by the motorist on Route 1, Saugus Police stopped the erratic driver further north on Route 1 Northbound. The driver, a Lynnfield woman, admitted to having been texting her boyfriend while driving. Saugus Police gave her a verbal warning and arranged to have her picked up and her car towed because she was in a highly emotional state. At that point, Saugus police received a call from an employee of the Hess gas station on Route 1 North just prior to Essex Street. The caller reported having heard a crash followed by the loss of electric power at the gas station. The Saugus officers who had stopped the woman broke off from that call to assist with the problem at the gas station – which, they learned upon arrival, was Capt. Cashin’s fatal crash.)