MANCHESTER — The 19-year-old driver involved in a fatal crash on Interstate 293 last month says police told him his blood tested negative for alcohol and drugs after the crash.

Ian Bolser of Bedford said he has been “devastated” since the July 28 crash that killed Andrew Roy of Bedford, who he said “was like a brother to me.”

“Andrew's been my best friend since we were about 13 years old,” he said.

State police say Bolser was driving a Mitsubishi Lancer about 6:45 a.m. when the car went off the Exit 2 ramp, hit the wooden barrier and rolled over. Bolser was hurt; Roy, 19, was pronounced dead at the scene.

It was Bolser's second crash on I-293 in Manchester within two months. And court records show that in the last nine months, three other police departments had charged him, on separate occasions, with violations that included speeding, transporting alcohol as a minor and possession of drugs.

In a brief telephone interview Saturday, Bolser said he had fallen asleep while driving just before the July 28 crash.

“I noticed that I was starting to nod off, so I was going to pull off at the next exit, and that's the last thing I remember.”

Bolser said he was with Roy and other friends at Hampton Beach the night before the crash. He said he wasn't drinking. “We're not druggies or anything like that,” he said.

But Andrew “was really tired, and he just wanted to go home,” he said. “He kept bugging me to drive. I kept saying, 'You should just fall asleep here and in a few hours we'll wake up and we'll go home.'”

But Bolser said he finally agreed to drive them home in Roy's car. “As soon as we got into the car, he fell asleep.”

Bolser said he's struggling to deal with what happened. “The entire day I was in the hospital, I just couldn't stop bawling my eyes out. It was so hard to try to accept one of my best friends for so long isn't there anymore.”

He said he's been unable to reach out to the Roy family to express his sorrow. “I feel so guilty and just so confused by everything right now that I just don't think that it would be emotionally healthy for either one of us.

“I really would like to extend out an apology. I just don't know how to go about it the right way.”

Bolser said emergency personnel drew his blood in the ambulance on the way to the hospital after the crash. When police later questioned him, “They told me the blood test came back negative.”

State police Sgt. Paul Hunt said he expects the investigation into the July 28 crash to be completed by the end of this week. He would not comment directly on toxicology tests, but said, “We're going to be extremely thorough, looking at any and all contributing factors that would have resulted in the crash.”

Hunt would not say whether speed, alcohol or drugs may have been among those contributing factors, or whether Bolser had fallen asleep before the crash.

June 10 crash

According to the Division of Motor Vehicles, Bolser has had a youth operator license for about a year and has no violations on his record.

But police and court records show that seven weeks before the fatal Manchester crash, he was involved in another crash on the same highway.

On June 10, Bolser was pulling onto I-293 southbound at Exit 4 about 2:30 p.m., according to Sgt. Hunt. “He lost control of his car, hit the guardrail in the center median, bounced off that and he hit a second vehicle that was in the travel lane,” he said.

The investigating trooper determined that Bolser was at fault in the crash, but no charges were filed, Hunt said. There were “no reported injuries and none observed,” he said.

A copy of the June 10 accident report obtained by the New Hampshire Sunday News shows the trooper concluded that Bolser “was operating to(o) fast to negotiate the curve on the exit 4 onramp.”

Charges, no convictions

According to court records, Bolser also was scheduled for trial on June 18 on charges of possession of a controlled drug, transporting a controlled drug and speeding. Those charges stemmed from a March 31 traffic stop in Hooksett.

Bolser didn't show up for that court date, and the judge issued a bench warrant for him, a court clerk said.

Bolser also was arrested on April 29 by Bedford police on a charge of transportation of alcohol by a minor. A police report states Bolser had $1,150 in cash and drug paraphernalia in his possession.

The charge was dropped at trial on July 24, court records show.

And a speeding charge after a traffic stop in Goffstown on Nov. 9 was dropped on Feb. 17, court records show.

Capt. Kerry Stechowych, prosecuting attorney for Goffstown police, said the case points up a problem with how records are kept and shared.

After Bolser was stopped and charged with speeding in Goffstown last November, Stechowych said, the arresting officer recommended the charge be dropped if the young driver stayed out of trouble for six months. When the case went to court on Feb. 17, Stechowych agreed to a dismissal of the charge on that condition.

Stechowych said he checked Bolser's motor vehicle record before that February court date and it showed no other violations. It was the same when the six months expired on July 17, and the charge was dropped.

“We were not aware of anything pending in Bedford or Hooksett or anything that happened in Manchester,” he said.

Had he known about the other incidents or the June 10 crash, he said, “I would have filed a motion to bring the case forward ... for trial,” he said. He could have sought a fine, license suspension and community service for Bolser, he said.

But such violations only go on someone's record after he is found guilty, Stechowych said. So police departments often are unaware that other agencies have something pending and may give someone a break.

“A better system of tracking pending things would make that easier,” Stechowych said.

“It's sad that somebody ended up dying in this particular incident,” he said. “Who knows how any of these other cases could have impacted that if we had been able to effectively share the information.”

In Saturday's brief telephone interview, Bolser ended the conversation before he could be asked about the previous incidents involving police. In subsequent electronic messages, however, he objected to the newspaper publishing information about his record and said it “has nothing to do with the accident.”

In an email the day after the July 28 fatal crash, the driver of the Jeep Wrangler that Bolser's car hit on June 10 told the New Hampshire Sunday News, “It was an absolute miracle that nobody was killed in that accident.”

His Jeep was rugged enough to take the impact, he said. “If he had hit a small car or a motorcycle, somebody probably would have died that day.”

The Jeep owner said he was “stunned” when he read in the paper about the crash that killed Anthony Roy.

The day of that crash, Bolser posted a message on his Facebook page:

“To all those who have messaged me or txted me to check up on me thank you so much all you guys and girls you have made today so much easier on me i love all of you sleep tight...especially you buddy i'll miss you like crazy - R.I.P. ANDREW ROY.”

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Shawne Wickham may be reached at swickham@unionleader.com.