Fife police officers found the body of an 80-year-old woman Friday inside a vehicle that had flipped on its top and landed in a thicket of blackberry bushes near the Puyallup River.

Investigators were trying to determine why the woman left the road and crashed her vehicle, Lt. Tom Thompson said.

“Right now, we have no witnesses to the crash,” he said. “We’re not really sure what happened.”

Union Pacific railroad crews called Fife police about 8:30 a.m. Friday after finding the vehicle on its top in the bushes in the 2600 block of North Levee Road.

Officers found the …

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The Applebee’s restaurant in Auburn is closed today after a car struck the building.

Valley Regional Fire Authority reports that two older women were in the car when it hit the restaurant at 1441 D St. N.E. just after 11 a.m.

The women refused medical aid at the scene. No employees or customers were injured.

A City of Auburn building official was going to assess the building for damage.

If you’ve ever been tempted to leave your child in a car while you just run into a business or a friend’s home for quick errand, you could find yourself defending yourself in court.

Both state statutes and local ordinances penalize drivers who leave children unattended in a vehicle, say police and prosecutors.

A Puyallup-area mother this week learned a difficult lesson about what can go wrong when she left her 16-month-old daughter in a car seat in an idling car while she dropped off her older daughter at daycare.

The woman said her daughter, who suffers from a serious …

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A young Kirkland woman is in serious condition at Harborview Medical Center this morning after an Enumclaw car crash that left her hanging upside down in her seat belt for five and a half hours.

The driver, a 25-year-old Bonney Lake man, was ejected from the car and is also at Harborview, in critical condition.

According to Washington State Patrol officer Cliff Pratt, the crash occurred at approximately 1:45 Saturday morning, but the destroyed vehicle was not discovered until 7:10 a.m.

Pratt said the vehicle left Highway 164 near Enumclaw at high speed, flew into a stand of trees and …

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Four Puyallup men today pleaded guilty to charges that they rolled back the odometers on a combined 75 vehicles so they could sell them at higher rates.

Plea agreements were reached for Ricky Ristick, 23; his father, Robert Ristick, 42; Miller Stevens, 32; and his brother, Stanley Stevens, 28. All four men pleaded guilty to conspiracy for selling used cars after tampering with odometers.

U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton will sentence the men Jan. 27.

Prosecutors said they would recommend no more than two years in prison. The defendants will collectively pay $100,000 toward restitution.

The Risticks admitted to …

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