Postscript: Man Whose Family Died in Crash to Wed Again

Color photographs of Pam Trueblood and her three children still hang on the dining room wall of the home at 1955 Lark Ellen Drive in Fullerton.

They are the same pictures published in Southern California newspapers six months ago when theTrueblood car collided head-on with a car driven by a drunk driving suspect, killing her and all three children.

Deaths involving drunk drivers often are highly publicized. But the Trueblood case was particularly tragic. That accident on a dark stretch of State College Boulevard near Bastanchury Road in Fullerton on Tuesday night, Oct. 23, wiped out Robert Trueblood’s entire family.

Two days after the accident Trueblood, 37, told a reporter: “The way I feel right now, four people didn’t die in that accident. Five did.” Police, coroner’s investigators, relatives and fellow parishioners at the Crystal Cathedral wondered how Trueblood would cope.

But last week, Trueblood sat in his living room on Lark Ellen Drive, holding the hand of Diane Moyer, 36, whom he plans to marry on April 20.

Friends and neighbors said Trueblood was totally committed to Pam Trueblood and their children: Eric, 11, Kerry, 9, and Scott, 8. “I had my wife, my kids, my church and my work,” he said last week. “There was very little else.”

Because the family was so close, Trueblood said, “some people were less than pleased” at word that he and Diane would marry.

Cancer Claimed Husband

Moyer had been a student in a Sunday school class Trueblood taught at the Crystal Cathedral. Her husband died of cancer two years ago. She was there when Trueblood needed someone who understood his grief.

“I got a lot of advice,” Trueblood said. “ ‘Take it slow. Don’t jump at the first one.’ I’ve seen people who had gone through a death that were in no condition to make decisions. But I had some opportunity to go out with other people, and I just wasn’t interested.

“We did a lot of going out to dinner and a lot of talking. Really, that was all I wanted to talk about: The crash. You can’t understand what it’s like until you’ve been there. Diane understood.

“The fact that I lost four at once . . . I’m not sure I hurt any worse than if I had just lost Pam or Scotty or Eric or Kerry. You can only hurt so bad.”

Now, Trueblood said, he wants to have children “as soon as possible.”

“Pam wanted children more than I did. But after having had them, it’s no longer something I want to live without.”

Moyer, who is unemployed, and Trueblood, who works for Braun Linen Service in Paramount, initially planned to marry in March. But they set the date back a month so it would not conflict with the preliminary hearing of Michael Wesly Reding, accused of second-degree murder in the Trueblood deaths.

However, the hearing has been continued at least twice. Trueblood said the most torturous lesson he has learned in the six months since the crash is that “the wheels (of justice) turn very slowly, and they are designed to overly protect the perpetrators of crime. There is no good thing that can happen to Michael Reding by going to court. So why go to court?”

Reding’s attorney, G. David Haigh, said the preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin April 26, but because Haigh is in the midst of another trial it probably will be continued until late May or early June.

Reding, whose only prior criminal record was a speeding ticket, was under a suicide watch during his confinement at the Orange County Jail before his family was able to post bond, Haigh said. “He’s going through counseling now,” Haigh said.

Blood Alcohol Level

Trueblood said he plans to attend both the preliminary hearing and the trial. “Michael Reding’s family will be there,” he said. “I have to serve as a reminder that four people were killed.”

Reding, a 26-year-old engineer who lived in a Fullerton apartment at the time of the accident, had a blood-alcohol level of .11 (slightly over the legal limit) when his Mercury Cougar swerved over the dividing line on State College Boulevard and collided with the Trueblood car, authorities said.

Pam Trueblood and two of her children died instantly, police said. Scott Trueblood died later that night at a local hospital. Two other children in the car were injured.

Trueblood, alarmed that his wife was late, learned what had happened when he left home to trace her route. “I didn’t know if I was going to crack from one moment to the next,” he said. “I broke down at my brother’s place (in Anaheim) later that night. I still break down to this day.”

Trueblood credits his faith with giving him the strength to cope. “I don’t believe it comes from any human source,” he said. “The good Lord put his arm around me and helped me through.”

Trueblood agrees to interviews to keep the memory of his wife and children alive, at least through Reding’s trial.

He says, however, that the death of his wife and children will not keep those inclined to drink and drive from killing others.

“Pam and the children were my entire life. I’ll carry the memories for as long as I live,” Trueblood said. “But others will forget.”