Woman died inside burning SUV that started ‘going crazy’; doors wouldn’t unlock

MADISON, Wisc. — Returning home along a snow-lined road last month, 73-year-old Mary Frahm had just dropped off her son for work when her car started acting bizarrely — the dashboard lights were flashing, the windshield wipers started up on their own, the speedometer was “going crazy” and the vehicle was losing power. 

After pulling over on Highway AB in the town of Dunn, Wisconsin, the McFarland, Wisconsin, resident phoned her fiancé to report that her 2009 Dodge Journey was “acting up” again, an occasional electrical problem with the vehicle she’d owned the past four years. This time, though, she couldn’t unlock the doors, even with her key fob, and the windows wouldn’t roll down, according to a Dane County (Wisconsin) sheriff’s report.

En route to help her, Frahm’s fiancé got another call from Frahm, this one more urgent. Smoke was now seeping out of the dashboard, and she could smell burning, the report stated.

He told her to call 911, which she did. But before first responders had arrived at the scene, flames had engulfed the vehicle, with Frahm still locked inside.

The Dane County medical examiner declared Frahm dead at the scene but has not released a cause of death in the Dec. 9 incident. 

Frahm “babied” her car, including staying on top of its standard maintenance, her fiancé told a sheriff’s officer on the scene.

An investigation revealed that the vehicle had a Totally Integrated Power Module, or TIPM, a part installed in some older Chrysler vehicles that has been in the crosshairs of an auto safety group and litigation but deemed safe by federal authorities. 

A sort of command center for a vehicle’s electrical system, TIPMs can sometimes go on the blink, causing windshield wipers and windows to malfunction or forcing a vehicle to shut down altogether, according to a class-action lawsuit against Chrysler.

In 2009, Chrysler recalled nearly 17,000 Dodge Journeys from that year over concerns that parts of the TIPM could “become contaminated, potentially causing the connector to melt and/or catch fire.” 

But Frahm’s vehicle was not subject to that recall or any other, according to a search of her vehicle identification number.

To avoid compromising any possible civil legal proceedings, Dane County Sheriff’s Detective William Hendrickson said he did not move or touch any vehicle parts in an attempt to find a cause of the fire, according to the sheriff’s report. He said his investigation revealed that the vehicle had a TIPM, which “had a documented history of possibly shorting out or causing some sort of an electrical or mechanical abnormality with the vehicles.”

Hendrickson said in the report that witness statements, the vehicle condition and comments from Frahm before her death “certainly suggested some sort of issue with the vehicle and not the involvement of a third party.”

Eric Mayne, a spokesperson for Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, said the company was not aware of other incidents similar to what happened to Frahm.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Ms. Frahm,” Mayne said. “We were unaware of this tragic event.”

Frahm was well known to the area’s autism and cognitive disability community. Her son, who is now in his 50s, has Down syndrome.

At the time of his birth, those with Down syndrome often didn’t live past childhood, but Frahm was resolute that “this isn’t going to happen to my son,” her sister Jill Raschein said. 

“Mary was really a groundbreaker for Down syndrome in the Madison area,” Raschein said.

For decades, Frahm spent much of her time working with community organizations. Beyond the Special Olympics, she helped secure funding for a Gigi’s Playhouse location in Madison and volunteered for the Shared Table Community Meal at McFarland Lutheran Church. 

Frahm’s family has hired a lawyer and experts to look into what happened to her car that day.  

Eric Haag, the family’s attorney, said the results of the investigation will determine whether the family has a lawsuit to bring against the vehicle manufacturer. 

“Obviously, cars aren’t supposed to catch on fire, and they’re not supposed to exhibit the kinds of whacko behavior that’s described in the report,” Haag said. 

TIPMs in other Chrysler vehicles got the auto manufacturer hit with a class-action lawsuit in 2014 alleging that the car company misled vehicle owners about defects in the power system. The lawsuit was settled after Chrysler recalled Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango vehicles from 2011 to 2013.

According to court records, alleged TIPM defects in some 2011 and 2012 Jeep and Dodge models included vehicles stalling in traffic, and headlights and windshield wipers activating on their own.

The Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group, saw a more-pervasive issue with TIPMs at the time, and in 2014 petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to recall Chrysler SUVs, trucks and vans from 2007 to 2014. TIPM issues with other Chrysler vehicles included lights, windshield wipers and windows activating and doors locking on their own.

“These owners remain at the mercy of a defect which many have likened to the vehicle being possessed and uncontrollable,” the center said in its petition. 

About 4.7 million vehicles, including about 157,000 2009 Dodge Journeys, had a TIPM-7, the part subject to the class-action suit.

In addition, the center unsuccessfully tried to unseal documents from the class-action suit against Chrysler.

The NHTSA ultimately found that a further probe of TIPMs was “not warranted” and that allegations of TIPMs causing airbag non-deployment, unintended acceleration or fire were “wholly without merit based on review of the field data and design of the relevant systems and components.”

The specific issue with TIPMs stemming from the class-action suit impacted only 11% of the 4.7 million vehicles with TIPM-7s and “has been addressed by safety recalls,” the NHTSA said. 

In an interview, Michael Brooks, the Center for Auto Safety’s executive director, said that during the group’s battles over TIPMs, the center never found a case like Frahm’s. He called her incident something “inevitable that we thought would happen.” 

“It’s harder to track fires and fatalities that occur if they’re not collision-related,” Brooks said, noting that fires rarely prevent electrical systems from being able to open a vehicle’s doors.

A lack of federal standards on the quality of electronics that go into vehicles makes it harder to regulate the auto industry, Brooks said, particularly at a time when vehicle software and electronics are becoming ubiquitous.