2 weekend crash victims are identified
Friends of the Kaneohe man killed along with a 22-year-old woman in a single-vehicle crash on Saturday remembered him as a gifted athlete and “the life of the party.”
While the Medical Examiner’s office has not yet officially identified the two victims, friends who gathered at the site of the crash yesterday confirmed that the driver was 27-year-old Micah Mench, a journeyman carpenter and father of two young children.
“It’s shocking,” said Ikaika Shores, 27, who attended Castle High School with Mench. “He was a real outgoing guy, always smiling. He was always really generous with his friends.”
Shores said he had heard about the crash while watching the evening news on Saturday but didn’t realize it was his friend until he found out via Facebook yesterday.
“He was just a good guy,” Shores said, wiping his eyes.
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According to police, Shores was driving at a high rate of speed headed south on Kamehameha Highway, about a half-mile from Johnson Road, when his 1997 Honda Civic veered off the road and hit a tree.
Both Mench and his passenger were declared dead at the scene.
Police said speed and possibly alcohol were factors in the crash.
Meanwhile, the Medical Examiner’s Office has identified the woman killed in Saturday’s head-on collision between a motorcycle and a Jeep on Kaukonahua Road as 26-year-old Brenda Anderson of Honolulu.
According to police, Anderson was riding northward at a high rate of speed when she lost control of her Harley-Davidson motorcycle and collided with the Jeep. Anderson was taken to Wahiawa General Hospital in critical condition and was later pronounced dead. The two occupants of the Jeep were not seriously uninjured.
In a message posted on a local Harley-Davidson online forum last month, Anderson, a native of Wisconsin, identified herself as former Navy personnel.
“Husband still serves while I’m out enjoying the freedom of the road,” she wrote.