Reunion Ends Tragically as 2 Girls Die

When David Paraiso arrived home after work Tuesday, his two young daughters, along with a niece who had arrived earlier in the day from San Francisco with her parents, were asking their mothers about taking a bubble bath.

“Uncle Dave, I’ve never taken a bubble bath,” Christine Bumanglag, 7, told Paraiso.

His daughters, Johanna, 7, and Jacqueline, 6, had not seen their cousin in two years, and the three were “practically inseparable”--playing in the yard of the Glassell Park home, which is ablaze with colorful flowers, putting on makeup, making ice cream sundaes.

“It was kind of an exciting thing for the three of them to take a bubble bath together,” Paraiso, 35, said Thursday. “Well . . . they had their bath together. You could hear them laughing a lot in the bathtub.”

Johanna was stepping out of the tub at about 6 p.m. when a portable hair dryer hanging from a towel rack fell into the tub. The dryer was not turned on, but it was plugged into an outlet.

“I tried to pull the plug out, but it was hard,” Johanna said. “I tried to get Jackie and Christine out, but they were too heavy. Then I called my mom, and when she came, she started screaming.”

Paraiso’s wife, Hildegarda, said paramedics reached the home on Verdugo View Drive three minutes after they were called and immediately began cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the two girls, but to no avail.

Autopsies determined that both girls died from accidental electrocution, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said.

Hildegarda Paraiso said she and Christine’s mother, Carmelita, had been in the bathroom “less than five minutes earlier to spread out a big towel by the tub to keep them from splashing water on the floor. Right after we came out, Jo came out and said, ‘Mommy, something’s wrong.’ ”

Both families controlled their grief Thursday as they sat in the Paraiso home making arrangements for Jacqueline’s funeral on Tuesday. Christine will be buried next week in San Francisco.

“The grief is there, but it gets a little better every day,” said Hildegarda Paraiso, who is expecting another child in October. “God gave them life, and he chose to take it back. So you just have to accept that and continue on with your faith in His divine wisdom.”

She said an earlier tragedy in the family taught her to accept death. Her mother was killed in an auto accident 14 years ago in the Philippines.

“Hilda was following in a second car, but by all rights she should have been in the first car with her mother,” David Paraiso said. “For some reason, her father told her to go to the second car.”

A baby grand piano, which the Paraisos bought two years ago, dominates the family’s living room.

“Jackie became interested in piano when she was 4,” Hildegarda Paraiso recalled. “Her teacher was amazed that she was able to pick up lessons so quickly. She would rather practice on Johanna’s piano pieces just to say she could play her older sister’s pieces too.”

Emmanuel Bumanglag, 45, recalled that his daughter enjoyed fishing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. She also liked watching MTV and was a Madonna fan.

“The sudden death of my daughter hurt so much,” he said. “Even at her age, she tried to help us so much. She would make my lunch. She tried her best to help us fold clothes or help with housecleaning.”

Jacqueline, who would have entered first grade next month, was just beginning to develop a real interest in reading.

“She just went to the library a few days ago to pick up books,” David Paraiso said. “She liked ‘Curious George.’ ”

“I feel sad that she won’t be in my room anymore,” Johanna said of her younger sister. “But I feel glad that she’s in heaven.”

David Paraiso talked slowly--in his own way warning others about dangers around the home--about “instruments that could result in accidents. I know that we are all very responsible parents. We tend to kind of overlook these dangers. We always thought we did enough to protect our children.”