Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Police and county officials search the area along Highway 17 just south of Los Gatos-Saratoga Road last Friday afternoon.

Death and violence plague Highway 17

By Shari Kaplan

For the second time in less than a week, the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department has been involved in incidents that had more than a few things in common: both took place on Highway 17 and involved death and violence. And both incidents backed up traffic on the busy freeway for hours.

On April 24 at about noon, two California Highway Patrol officers pulled over along northbound Highway 17 near Highway 9 to offer assistance to Fremont resident Dan Mackay, whom they thought had car trouble because his pickup truck was parked on the side of the road.

Upon discovering a trail of blood on the ground and blood in the truck bed, the CHP notified the LGPD, which sent officers to speak with Mackay.

Mackay, 42, eventually admitted to authorities that he had killed his wife, Debby Mackay, 38, according to a representative of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department. Mackay allegedly dumped her body in Santa Cruz County, approximately a half-mile south of Summit Road. While search and rescue dogs sought the body, Fremont police obtained a search warrant for the Mackays' home in Fremont's Irvington district, where they lived with their four children. The dogs discovered the body around 6 p.m.

Fremont police believe Mackay struck his wife with a blunt object in Fremont, zipped her bloody body into a sleeping bag, placed it in the back of his campershell-covered truck and drove down Highway 17 into Santa Cruz County, where he left the body in the thick brush. Police said the couple were going through a divorce. He is currently jailed without bail on suspicion of murder.

Debby Mackay's body was less than 100 yards south of the site of the death of Thomas Peter Stav, the driver who was shot by a California Highway Patrol officer the morning of April 21 following a string of hit-and-run collisions and a high-speed chase along southbound Highway 17 out of Los Gatos.

The fatal day for the 21-year-old Pittsburg man, whom authorities report was under probation for his arrest last summer on charges of being a minor driving under the influence of alcohol, began on Highway 17 near Summit Road, where he was involved in a hit-and-run. By the time a witness called 911, Stav was on his way into downtown Los Gatos.

After colliding with a truck in the intersection of N. Santa Cruz Avenue and Los Gatos-Saratoga Road, Stav fled the scene and drove along N. Santa Cruz toward Blossom Hill Road, according to McCarty. It was then that officer James Wiens saw Stav's sport utility vehicle driving in an erratic fashion.

"Wiens attempted to conduct a traffic stop based on the fact that the vehicle was driving erratically," McCarty said, adding that Stav nearly collided with Wiens' patrol car as he avoided the traffic stop.

With Wiens in pursuit, McCarty said, Stav sped along a course that included two quick U-turns and several busy town streets: Blossom Hill Road, Los Gatos Boulevard, Los Gatos-Almaden Road, University Avenue and finally Union Avenue, which Stav used to access northbound Highway 85 and connect to southbound 17.

The pursuit ended near Summit Road, where the whole incident began earlier. With roadwork near the summit narrowing the highway to one lane, officers closed in. After slamming into a patrol car that a CHP officer purposely used to block Stav's vehicle, Stav emerged but did not put his hands up, as the swarm of officers ordered him to do, according to Sgt. Jim Arata of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating the incident along with the CHP.

Arata said Stav behaved "erratically," acted like he might have a weapon in one of his pockets and shouted that he had a gun. Campbell police shot rubber bullets in an attempt to subdue but not kill him. This didn't stop Stav; when he continued to act in a threatening manner, a CHP officer from the agency's San Jose office shot Stav in the chest, felling him almost immediately.

Paramedics at the scene began treating Stav and had him airlifted by helicopter to the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, where he was pronounced dead. The CHP officer who shot Stav has been placed on routine administrative leave.

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