Drunk Driver Gets 10 Years in Car Deaths of 2 Women

A North Hollywood man who pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter while driving drunk was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in state prison.

Oscar Alvarado, 22, has already been behind bars for almost four months since Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Turner took the highly unusual action of ordering him jailed without bail after he drove to one of his court appearances, despite having his license revoked.

“Judge Turner declared him, in essence, to be a continuing danger to the safety of the community at large,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Marsh Goldstein, who prosecuted the case.

Alvarado was charged in the December, 1984, deaths of Kimberly Kingsbury, 21, of Tarzana, and Jillian Courie, 23, of Hollywood.

The defendant, who has told probation officers that he drank 18 beers and two mixed drinks on the night of the accident, drove his car across the center line in the 2600 block of Cahuenga Boulevard, near the Hollywood Bowl, and collided head on with the victims’ Volkswagen at about 1:30 a.m.

At the time, authorities said, the unemployed Alvarado was driving even though his license had been suspended because of his involvement in a December, 1983, drunk driving collision.

The women, both of whom were employed as extras on the current film “Weird Science,” were on their way home after having dinner with other cast members, Kingsbury’s mother, Alexandra Kostoff, said.

“This case has had mind boggling repercussions on the families of both decedents,” Goldstein said. “Both were only children raised by single mothers. Both were attractive, nice people.”

Kostoff said Thursday that she “can’t sleep and it’s difficult to eat . . . this is the end of our family.”

Courie’s mother has been hospitalized due to trauma suffered as the result of her daughter’s death, Goldstein said.

Maximum Sentence

Superior Court Judge Jean Matusinka, to whom the case was recently transferred, sentenced Alvarado to the maximum possible term--eight years imprisonment for the first offense and an additional two years for the second offense.

The stiff sentence is apparently the first in which a defendant has received the maximum time allowed under the state’s revamped 1984 vehicular manslaughter law, Tricia Higgins of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said.

Under the previous law, Higgins said, the maximum sentence would have been three years for the first manslaughter offense. Authorities said Alvarado could be eligible for parole in about five years.