The 27-year-old man accused of causing a drunken-driving accident that killed four Santa Fe teenagers early Sunday did not have a substance abuse problem as of the beginning of this month, according to a court-ordered mental health evaluation.

Scott Owens underwent the examination, which found no mental health problems either, as the result of being arrested by Santa Fe police in December for possession of marijuana, according to Santa Fe Municipal Court records. The possession charge was dismissed June 11, the records say.

Meanwhile, the driver of the 1992 red Subaru that police say Owens hit while driving drunk in the wrong lane of Old Las Vegas Highway has a good chance to make a full recovery, Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said Monday.

Avree Koffman, 16, was taken off a ventilator Monday and was breathing on her own, but has not regained consciousness, the sheriff said.

Koffman's injuries included a fractured skull, fractured pelvis and other injuries, according to a release from Monte del Sol Charter School, where she previously attended school.

Solano said he assigned extra detectives Monday to investigate the crash after his office was inundated with calls, text messages and Internet rumors. Those rumors, none of which had been substantiated by Monday evening, included differing accounts of how the crash occurred, talk of alcohol being found near the crash scene and that someone else might have been in Owens' 1992 Jeep Cherokee with him at the time of the crash, Solano said.

"We will do a complete investigation," Solano said, adding that Owens agreed to talk to detectives Monday.

Rose Simmons, 15, Alyssa Trouw, 16, Kate Klein, 16, and Julian Martinez, 16, were killed just after midnight Sunday when Owens hit the passenger side of Koffman's red Subaru near the Bobcat Bite on Old Las Vegas Highway. Owens allegedly was driving west in the eastbound lane, and Koffman attempted to get out of his way by swerving left into the lane Owens should have been in, Undersheriff Robert Garcia has said.

At the same time, Owens tried to swerve back into his lane and hit the red Subaru directly in the passenger compartment, Garcia has said. Owens strongly smelled of alcohol after the crash, had bloodshot and watery eyes, slurred speech and unsteady balance, according to a search warrant affidavit that was drafted to obtain a sample of his blood for testing.

Results of that test may not be available for at least two weeks, Garcia said Monday.

No alcohol was found in Owens' Cherokee, but deputies did find "a multicolored glass smoking device" between the driver's seat and the door, according to the affidavit. Owens, who suffered minor injuries, first told a deputy after the crash that he hadn't been drinking, then said he'd never told him such a thing, the affidavit says.

Clay Kinart, 15, said Monday that he was riding in a white Subaru that was part of a caravan of four cars heading to a party in Eldorado when the crash occurred about 12:10 a.m. The white Subaru was behind the red Subaru when Kinart said he saw the Jeep coming toward them in the middle of the road.

The Jeep then swerved into the lane the Subarus were in, causing Koffman — the driver of the red Subaru — to swerve into the left lane. The Jeep made the same move and struck the red Subaru, causing it to flip around once, Kinart said. The white Subaru he was in continued through the crash scene and sideswiped the back of the driver's side of the Jeep, he said.

The driver of the white Subaru stopped by a tree on the other side of the crash. Kinart, a Monte del Sol Charter School student, said he got out and ran to the red Subaru to check on his friends. He said he looked in the back seat of the car and knew "there was nothing I could do." He said the memories of what he saw are causing him to experience flashbacks when he tries to sleep.

"I feel devastated," he said. "I feel shocked."

At some point, friends of Owens' drove up in another car and asked Kinart what happened. He said he told them, "Everybody's dead."

Kinart said he and others in the cars had been hanging out at a Sonic drive-in waiting for something to do before driving out to Eldorado, and that no one in any of the four cars had been drinking or doing drugs. Additionally, none had alcohol with them, he said.

Witnesses said Owens was the only person in his car at the time of the crash, and he admitted to being the driver, said Deputy Brian Markley, the first official to arrive at the scene.

Kaeleigh Stengle, 16, was driving the third car in the caravan — a 1998 Ford Explorer — and confirmed Kinart's account of the crash. She said the red Subaru was leading the caravan with the white Subaru next and her Explorer after that. Stengle said she saw the Cherokee plow into the red Subaru, but didn't see the white Subaru hit the Cherokee afterward because she had to slam on her brakes and swerve to the right to avoid hitting the Cherokee herself.

Barbara Owens, Scott Owens' mother, said Monday that her son's friends who came upon the scene just after the crash — but didn't actually see the crash occur — told her a different version of the incident. She said she was told the white Subaru was at the front of the caravan and sideswiped the Jeep on the way past, causing it to veer into the red Subaru.

Kinart said that version of events "is not true."

Scott Owens' friends helped him out of the car, Barbara Owens said. She also angrily rejected the idea that her son was preparing to flee while removing a small motorcycle from the back of his Jeep when a sheriff's deputy arrived. She said her son was going to give it to one of his friends because it was worth a lot of money and he didn't want it to be stolen.

Barbara Owens also said her son was headed into Santa Fe at the time of the crash and had been hanging out with friends and drinking "somewhere south of town." She declined to be more specific.

"My son definitely was drinking," she said. "I don't know how much. He doesn't remember."

Garcia has said Scott Owens told a deputy he thought he was heading toward Eldorado, where he lived with his mother.

Barbara Owens also said her son's friends told her they found four unopened bottles of vodka in some bushes near the crime scene Monday. However, Solano said Monday evening that investigators hadn't found the liquor.

Barbara Owens said her son, who is single and has no children, builds and repairs cars and has lived in the Santa Fe area for about 20 years. He attended Santa Fe High School, she said.

"He's a really kind man," Barbara Owens said. "He's very generous and very sweet. Everyone who knows him loves him."

She said she talked to her son on the phone and he was "devastated."

"He's crying," Barbara Owens said. "He's beside himself. He's in a state of shock. It's horrifying. It's a horrible situation for every parent of all the kids and ... for everyone."

Scott Owens is scheduled to be arraigned today in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court on four counts of vehicular homicide and one count of great bodily injury by vehicle.

He was ticketed for possession of marijuana in January after a city police officer found him and another man with pipes, and each with less than an ounce of the drug, at Baja Taco, a Cerrillos Road eatery, said Santa Fe police Capt. Gary Johnson. A clinician with Presbyterian Medical Services conducted Owens' mental health exam June 1 and didn't refer him for treatment because she didn't find substance abuse or mental problems, according to Municipal Court records.

Scott Owens was arrested for driving while intoxicated in June 2001, when he was 19, according to Santa Fe Municipal Court records. In that incident, an officer saw him racing a Chevrolet Camaro in his Ford Truck on Cerrillos Road near St. Francis Drive, records state.

After he was pulled over, Scott Owens smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot, watery eyes and slurred his speech when he spoke to the officer, according to the report. He admitted to having four alcoholic drinks and had a breath-alcohol content of .15, nearly twice the legal driving limit.

Scott Owens pleaded guilty to the DWI, and then-Municipal Court Judge Frances Gallegos dismissed the charge of racing on public streets, records state. Gallegos gave him one year of unsupervised probation, ordered him to attend DWI school, complete 48 hours of community service, fined him $535 and gave him credit for spending one day in jail, according to records.

Santa Fe police also contacted Scott Owens in October 1998 after he and another man allegedly took the keys to a friend's father's Mitsubishi Montero, went joyriding and flipped the vehicle, Johnson said. The case was referred to the Juvenile Probation Office, and Scott Owens was never arrested. No alcohol was involved in that case, he said.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.

Editor's note: The attached 911 calls from those at the scene of the accident contain graphic and disturbing content that might offend some site users.