Oak Harbor man gets 10 years for fatal hit-and-run crash

An Oak Harbor man admitted to killing 20-year-old Anna Noelle Albert in a deadly hit-and-run and was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison, bringing a long-running Island County case to a close in Island County Superior Court.

Travis Loetterle, 35, pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide and felony hit-and-run before Judge Carolyn Cliff. Under Washington law, vehicular homicide is a class A felony and hit-and-run involving a death is a class B felony, a legal framework that made the case one of the most serious traffic prosecutions on Whidbey Island in recent memory.

The case stems from the June 5, 2024, crash that killed Albert, a Crescent Harbor Elementary School teacher. Police said the collision was reported at 2:34 p.m. on East Crescent Harbor Road near Western Drive in Oak Harbor. Investigators said Loetterle’s Ford F-250 crossed the center line and struck Albert’s Toyota Highlander head-on on a stretch of road described as straight for miles.

Police said Loetterle fled the scene and hid in the woods before turning himself in about 12 hours later. Court records also said the crash was the third collision Loetterle had been involved in during the previous eight months. In the weeks after the fatal wreck, police said Whidbey Island had seen six traffic deaths in nine weeks and three alleged fatal hit-and-runs in that same span, a run of crashes officers called unprecedented.

The courtroom hearing was marked by a painful account of the loss delivered through a representative for Kimberly Albert, Anna Albert’s mother. Her statement described the call she got from her daughter that day, when Anna called from work to surprise her with dinner plans. Kimberly Albert told her daughter to stop by the school to pick up the keys, then later saw a crash alert on her phone and flashing lights outside.

What followed was the kind of scene families carry forever: she ran to the crash site, was warned she did not want to see what was there, and saw her daughter’s vehicle crushed in front. Emergency workers brought in a helicopter, then sent it away because the injuries were too severe. The family’s dog, Quincy, was walked away from the car, briefly giving Kimberly Albert hope that her daughter might still be alive. Instead, the day ended with medics, a chaplain and a formal death notification.

Albert’s obituary said she was born Sept. 25, 2003, graduated from Friday Harbor High School in 2022 and attended Whatcom Community College with plans to transfer to Western Washington University. It also said she loved art, was becoming a jeweler and ceramist, and had worked at the Black Cat in Fairhaven and the Riptide Café in Friday Harbor.

The plea and sentence end the criminal case without a trial, but the loss remains tied to Crescent Harbor Elementary, the Albert family and a community that has spent two years reckoning with one violent afternoon on East Crescent Harbor Road.