Seven Killed, Four Injured in Two Violent Road Crashes

Four elderly Riverside County people were killed Wednesday morning when their pickup truck pulled off a freeway in the Perris area and was struck broadside by a transit-mix cement truck, the California Highway Patrol reported.

In Ventura County, meanwhile, at least three people died and four were injured when an automobile ran into a truck pausing on a highway to make a turn and two tractor-trailer rigs smashed into the wreckage.

CHP Officer John Anderson said the Riverside County crash occurred about 10:30 a.m. when David Ward, 76, of Romoland turned off Interstate 215 onto the Ramona Expressway between Perris and March Air Force Base into the path of the cement truck driven by Kenneth Ayers, 50, of San Jacinto.

Two of the occupants of the pickup truck died immediately and the others died later at a hospital, Anderson said. He identified the victims as Ward and his wife, Norma, 82; Maxine Capps, 66, of Sun City, and Edd Waren, 89, also of Sun City.

Tried to Avoid Crash

Ayers was not arrested or cited. “He did everything he could to avoid the crash,” Anderson said.

The 9:35 a.m. Ventura County accident occurred a few miles east of Fillmore, where a pickup truck driven by Ruben Zabala, 37, of Santa Paula reportedly was stopped on California 126 to make a left turn onto a side road when an automobile smashed into it.

The car then apparently spun across the road into the path of a tractor-trailer. A second large rig reportedly piled into the wreckage.

Zabala died at Ventura County Medical Center in Ventura. The names of two other people who died later at Santa Paula Memorial Hospital were not immediately released.

The four injured people reportedly included two men and two women. One of the latter was said to be in critical condition and the others were believed seriously injured.