Two dead after crash near Steptoe

Two people died early this morning in a one-car wreck near Steptoe. The call came in around 2 a.m., and Whitman County sheriff’s deputies responded to the crash off Hume Road, about eight miles north of Colfax and two miles outside of Steptoe. The sheriff’s department identified the victims as Jonathan Thomas Scholz, 37, of Steptoe and Kimberly Ann Blowers, 32, of Tampa, Florida. A news release from the sheriff’s office said the car, “believed to be a late model Mercedes sedan,” was found “fully engulfed and embedded into a tree about 50 feet north of the roadway.” A preliminary assessment of the scene suggests the car was speeding, the release said. Hume Road is expected to reopen shortly after 10 a.m.