A prosecutor on Tuesday promised to walk a Clark County jury through what began as a fatal car crash investigation but investigators later found to be a targeted drive-by shooting. Branden Lombardo was pronounced dead Nov. 6, 2022, after his car veered off Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard and crashed near the intersection of 65th Avenue in central Vancouver. An autopsy revealed the 26-year-old had actually died from a gunshot wound to the head, according to investigators. Senior Deputy Prosecutor Dan Gasperino said investigators used phone records and surveillance video to identify Yana Cook as the shooter. In his opening statement, the prosecutor said he would ask the Superior Court jury to find Cook, 27, guilty of first-degree murder.

Gasperino said the jurors would hear from the mother and son who were driving east on Fourth Plain Boulevard behind Lombardo’s maroon Chevrolet Malibu. When the Chevrolet crashed, they pulled over to check on the driver. The son pulled an injured Lombardo from the car, who was later pronounced dead. The jury will see hours of surveillance video over the course of the trial, Gasperino said, which captured an Infiniti SUV pull up to the left of the Chevrolet followed by an apparent muzzle flash from the Infiniti’s passenger side. He said he would also show jurors video of the Chevrolet leaving a nearby apartment complex and being followed by the Infiniti with its headlights off, despite the 8 p.m. darkness. Cook can be seen entering the passenger side of the Infiniti, the prosecutor said. Cook’s phone records placed him in Vancouver the weekend of the shooting and showed that he left town afterward, Gasperino said.

Cook was arrested, Gasperino said, when he arrived for a probation check-in with the Washington State Department of Corrections in Raymond. Defense attorney Katie Kauffman asked the jury to pay close attention to the evidence, which she said would be lacking. She told jurors they would hear about an incomplete investigation, conflicting information and witnesses whom she said are biased. The trial is scheduled to last seven days.