Was alcohol a factor in triple fatality on Tuesday?

Investigators suspect alcohol may have played a role in the crash at a rural intersection near Wilder that they say was caused when Caldwell resident Steve Mark ran a stop sign.

The possibility led to two sharply different responses.

A woman struck by Mark on a night in 2003 when he was drunk experienced a frightening sense of deja vu.

"Yesterday, I was in total shock. I was bawling on the phone to my husband," Brenda Pickrel said Thursday. "It could have been us."

But Mark's father, who acknowledged his son had a history of drunken driving, said Mark hadn't been drinking for the past five years - that he had changed since he crashed into Pickrel and her husband on New Year's Eve 2003.

"He was clean. I don't think those kids were drinking," said Allen Mark, who lost both his 28-year-old son and his stepson, Kevin J. Snow, 21, who was Steve Mark's passenger.

"We're burying them both," Mark said Thursday night. Steve Mark leaves behind a fiancee, their 3-year-old son and a baby due soon.

Former Boise pub owner Gaines "Moby" Davidson was also killed in the crash, which occurred at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Batt Corner and Red Top roads in Canyon County when police say Steve Mark failed to yield at a stop sign.

Allen Mark said he does not believe Idaho State Police's initial theory. He believes it was a head-on collision.

"There's not one skid mark out there," said Mark, who noted he'd examined the wreck scene 25 times since it happened. "It's like these two vehicles slammed into each other like they didn't see each other coming."

"I wish someone would explain to me what happened," Mark said.

It won't be known whether alcohol was a factor until blood tests come back, said Idaho State Police Trooper Quinn Carmack.

Beer cans were found at the scene, though it's unknown if they came from one of the two pickups or the yard where the vehicles came to rest after the collision, Carmack said. The resident at the house where the vehicles landed said Friday that there were no beer cans or bottles in her yard prior to the crash.

Steve Mark had been arrested for multiple driving infractions, including speeding, eluding police and driving under the influence. He was charged with DUI in 1998, 2002 and 2003; the first case was dismissed, but he was convicted in the two more recent cases.

He had a valid driver's license at the time of his death, an Idaho Department of Transportation official said Thursday.

Mark spent nine months in prison in 2002-03 after conviction on felony charges of burglary and grand theft in 2001.

Pickrel said the crash Tuesday was just a couple of miles from where Mark crashed into her and her husband five years ago. The Parma natives were driving to a friend's house in Homedale on U.S. 95 when Mark rammed them from behind, sending them off the highway. Mark fled and was arrested by police after hitting a parked car; he was convicted for DUI.

"The first time we ever went out on New Year's Eve in our whole married life, and we got hit by a drunk driver," Pickrel said.

Pickrel's husband, Scott, suffered neck and back injuries and was out of work for four months.

Katy Moeller: 377-6413

Patrick Orr contributed to this story.