Woman slams van into house in domestic dispute

WASILLA — A Palmer woman was in jail after police said she threatened to harm five children in a domestic violence incident in Palmer Saturday evening.

Lisa Stewart, 47, of Wasilla, faces a single charge of criminal mischief, five counts third-degree assault and one count of reckless driving following the incident, in which she drove a Chevy Astro van into the side of a house along Georgia Avenue about 10 p.m., according to a sworn affidavit written by Trooper Bryce Weight and filed in court Sunday morning.

The children, ages 11, 10, 10, 7, and 5, were visiting with their unnamed father for Father’s Day when Stewart showed up to collect the them, the father told Weight. The children got in the van, but the father, who is separated from Stewart, didn’t come out of the house, according to Weight.

Stewart became upset and drove the car into the side of the house, then backed to the end of the house’s driveway and rammed it a second time, the children told Weight.

One child “said his mother had definitely collided with the house on purpose,” Weight wrote. “She had been very upset and had been screaming she was going to kill them all.”

The house ended up six feet off its foundation, Weight wrote. The house was in disarray and a large flat screen had been damaged. The total damage was estimated at more than $750, Weight wrote.

After the car struck the house a second time, the father told troopers he ran outside and put the vehicle in park, Weight wrote. He told troopers Stewart ran off into some nearby woods yelling that she was going to killer herself, according to Weight.

No life-threatening injuries were reported, Weight wrote.

“Some of the children were sore due to hitting the windshield during the collisions,” Weight wrote. “All the children stated they had been afraid they would be hurt due to their mother’s actions with the vehicle.”

Troopers found Stewart lying in the woods. Stewart told troopers she had driven the vehicle into the building on accident, and had been trying to get away because the father had been mean to her, Weight wrote. Stewart told Weight she’d taken Valium and lisenopril (a blood pressure medication), but did not feel impaired at the time of the incident.

Stewart remained in Mat-Su Pretrial Monday afternoon on $1,500 cash or corporate bail with a court-appointed third-party requirement.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.