The family of a girl who was killed in a car crash on Whidbey Island last December filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a young Oak Harbor man, claiming that he negligently let her use his car and DoorDash account even though she was just 15 years old, according to court documents.

Investigative documents obtained through a public records request, a coroner’s report, the lawsuit, an interview with attorneys and copies of text messages describe a night of teenage drama — and conflicting accounts — that ended in tragedy.

The attorneys representing the family of Grace Horn filed the lawsuit against 19-year-old Oak Harbor resident Hunter Boone in Island County Superior Court on July 31. After Boone didn’t respond, the attorneys filed a motion for default on Sept. 17, with a hearing set for Oct. 6.

The News-Times was unable to reach Boone for comment.

The tragedy made headlines across the region and television news. In interviews with media after the tragedy, Grace Horn’s mother, Jennifer Horn, said that her daughter was delivering for DoorDash to earn money for Christmas presents.

The lawsuit accuses Boone of negligence and asks for general damages and economic loss. The Horn family is represented by Neil Lindquist and Michael Maxwell with the Issaquah firm Maxwell Graham.

“It’s not about assets,” Lindquist said in an interview. “It’s about justice and accountability.”

Lindquist said the family felt betrayed by Boone for not only allowing their unlicensed daughter to use his “muscle car,” but they believe he misled an investigator and tried to shift the blame onto Grace Horn.

“Mr. Boone knew or should have known,” the lawsuit states, “in the exercise of ordinary care, that Grace Horn was not licensed to drive a motor vehicle, was not competent to operate a motor vehicle, was not legally permitted to operate a motor vehicle, and frequently was reckless and heedless in her past operation of defendant Boone’s motor vehicle.”

Grace Horn didn’t have a learner’s permit and never took any driver’s education.

Lindquist said the firm did an in-depth analysis of the roadway where the fiery crash occurred, which was on Highway 20 at the intersection of Libbey Road, between Oak Harbor and Coupeville. While the section of road has a history of accidents, he said the law firm concluded that problems with the road aren’t serious enough to be considered negligent, so the family isn’t filing a lawsuit against the state Department of Transportation. The family initially filed a tort claim with Island County, which doesn’t have jurisdiction over the highway, but apparently that action is being abandoned.

According to a Washington State Patrol certified technical specialist’s report, Grace Horn was driving Boone’s 2022 Dodge Charger when the collision occurred at 3 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2024. She was headed north toward her Oak Harbor home after dropping off an order for DoorDash, an online app that pays drivers to deliver food.

Grace Horn lost control at the sweeping curve, and the car crossed into the oncoming lane, left the roadway, went down an embankment and became airborne before striking the power pole. The car “suffered extreme intrusive damage at impact” and then caught fire, the report states.

The lawsuit states that the car had a container of gasoline in the trunk; Grace had run out of fuel earlier in the night, and a friend helped her out by bringing gas.

Jeffrey Pangburn, a 56-year-old homeless man, was sleeping in a nearby gazebo and was nearly struck with debris from the collision, according to the report. He heard screams and tried to free the girl from the car, but was unable to because of the flames and suffered burns to his hands. He retreated to call for help.

Grace Horn, the sole occupant, died inside the car. The lawsuit describes her pain and suffering, saying that she was trapped in the car “while it burned for several minutes until she perished from those injuries.”

A report from the Island County Coroner’s Office states that she had high levels of carboxyhemoglobin in her blood from smoke inhalation and does not note any drugs or alcohol; Lindquist said no evidence of drugs or alcohol were found in any toxicology tests. Last month, her death certificate was amended to state that her cause of death was blunt trauma of the trunk with smoke inhalation as a contributing factor.

The exact nature of the relationship between Grace Horn and Boone, who was 18 at the time, is somewhat unclear.

A State Patrol report states that he was her boyfriend and that they lived together at her parent’s house. Lindquist said they had a relationship and that Boone was renting a place at the property because her parents were trying to help him out, but he wasn’t living with the younger girl.

In an interview with a state trooper, Boone said he and Grace Horn had a fight prior to the accident because she wanted to buy drugs, according to a transcript. He also said he had only recently started talking to her and was unclear what grade she was in. He said she suffered from mental health and substance abuse problems, but she had gotten treatment and had been “clean” in recent months.

Lindquist said that text messages that night between Boone and Grace Horn show that he asked her to take the car.

Boone wrote to Grace Horn on Instagram at 6:16 p.m., saying that he was waiting for her at a picnic table and then later added “Nevermind the cars at the beach with the keys in it. …Whenever you want you can go get it.”

He then told her, “Regardless of anything I love you. Be safe.”

Then in a text at 8 p.m., he wrote “Please.” “Take the car.” “It’s cold out,” according to a screenshot from the attorney. The text makes it clear that the two teenagers had an argument, with Boone writing that the only reason he was fighting with her was because he loved her.

“You don’t see it right now but one day you will,” the text states.

In an interview with a state trooper the next morning, he wrote that he picked her up at City Beach at about 9 p.m. He later told the trooper that he always leaves the keys in his car and suggested she drove it without his knowledge.

“So I guess she um, took it and I don’t know really anything after that,” he said.

He told the trooper that he has an alcohol problem and that he started drinking that night. He had a friend who came over to help, and he also called a superior at the fire department where he worked.

A TV news station reported that Grace Horn used her parent’s DoorDash account, but the lawsuit claims that Boone gave her access to his account.

A trooper interviewed Grace Horn’s high school friend, who said Grace called her at about 11 p.m.; she had been delivering food for DoorDash in Anacortes and the Dodge Charger ran out of gas near Cranberry Lake. Her friend got her the gas and Grace Horn continued the deliveries. Grace Horn asked her friend to “babysit” Boone because he was drunk while she went to comfort another friend, who turned out to be asleep. Grace Horn then returned to her house before going out to deliver DoorDash again. Her last text was at 2:26 a.m.

In an interview with a trooper, Boone said he believed Grace Horn may have tried to commit suicide, but the coroner’s report states that the scene investigation, multiple interviews and other evidence shows that it was clearly an accidental death.

“Factors that were considered in this tragic incident were that Grace was a fifteen-year-old who was driving in the early hours of 03:00 hour, she was an unlicensed, inexperienced driver, along with the vehicle speed and weather conditions,” the coroner’s report states. “Weather conditions, reported by the national weather service at the time of the incident indicated a weather advisory for the area due to thick, dense fog with low visibility.”