2 Men Haunted by Memory of Tragic Accident : Broken in Spirit, Michael Reding Awaits Sentencing in Drunk-Driving Deaths

Spurned by friends and fired from his job, about the only thing that Michael Wesley Reding finds solace in these days is his dog. And the dog’s name is Disaster.

“I named the dog that to get used to living with disaster,” Reding told a reporter last week--before a jury convicted him Thursday on four counts of second-degree murder in the Oct. 23, 1984, drunk-driving traffic deaths of a Fullerton mother and her three children.

It was the first Orange County murder conviction in a drunk-driving case.

Since the accident, the 27-year-old engineer, formerly a Northrop Corp. employee, has had to fight off the demons that constantly plague him, he said at his Fullerton home.

“They want my self-esteem, which I really don’t have anymore.”

On the day of the crash, Reding had consumed five beers and four kamikazes, a potent vodka drink. He said he was trying to ease the pain from a leg injury he had sustained in an earlier accident. About 8 p.m., after being refused further service, he left Laredo’s Bar in Brea.

Minutes later, witnesses said they heard his car “roaring” by at high speed on State College Boulevard near Bastanchury Road in Fullerton. Reding testified that he was fumbling with some cassette tapes on the seat of his car. When he looked up, he was almost upon a much slower Blazer, traveling south on State College. Reding cranked the steering wheel hard to the right toward the road’s shoulder, then hard left to avoid falling over a steep embankment. As he lost control, his car went into a crescent-shaped skid across three lanes and into an oncoming car driven by Pamela Trueblood, 36.

Tests revealed that Reding had a blood-alcohol level of 0.108, slightly above the 0.10 level that is the minimum for a California conviction of drunk driving.

Blood tests also showed a reading of 0.45 micrograms per milliliter of benzoyl ecgonine, a substance described in court as metabolized cocaine. Reding acknowledged that he was a “recreational” cocaine user but denied taking cocaine the day of the crash.

Last week, as he sipped soda from a can, he said, “I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since.” He has also abstained from drugs, he said.

Broken Man

With the crash and his subsequent arrest and trial, the once-confident “A” student from Esperanza High School in Anaheim has become a broken man, physically and emotionally.

Yet he doesn’t believe his case symbolizes the drunk-driving problem. He quickly noted he had had no prior drunk-driving arrests and only two speeding citations. He doesn’t think of himself as a killer such as Charles Manson or the “Night Stalker.”

As a registered Republican, Reding once favored a strict law-and-order policy and “sending defendants up the river,” especially for violent crimes, he said, but he has since changed his mind.

“I now would certainly take a closer look at everything which contributed to someone else’s problems before I was so judgmental.”

His mother, Kathleen Reding, said that Robert Trueblood, whose wife and three children were killed in the crash, has “a bit of solace” to rely on, because Trueblood has since remarried. “On the other hand, Michael only has prison to look forward to,” she said.

It is the prospect of prison that troubles Reding, who at six feet and 130 pounds, presents, in his words, a “prison target.” In his bedroom, he kept a set of barbells handy to help him “bulk up,” he said.

Fears the Worst

“Here you have this blond-haired 130-pound white boy, and I’m headed for prison. I’d be a prison target,” he said, half jokingly.

Reding grew up in Fremont in Northern California, where his father worked as a manufacturers’ representative. The family moved to Yorba Linda when Reding was a freshman in high school. There, he gradually achieved academic success in science and math.

He was graduated from Cal State Fullerton in January, 1983, as an engineer. He got his first job as a systems analyst with a Santa Ana chemical firm before he was hired at Northrop in Hawthorne, where he worked on sophisticated aircraft guidance systems.

He said his troubles began with a freak accident in the Northrop parking lot.

He and a co-worker had just returned from shopping when he was struck by a car driven by a friend. While Reding described the incident as “just one of those things,” he told neighbors the accident was the result of a playful driver trying to narrowly miss him. In any event, he suffered serious ligament damage to his left leg and was on crutches for six months.

It was a combination of the pain and free time during his recuperation, he said, that landed him on a bar stool inside Laredo’s.

After his arrest, and while in jail, he received a notice by mail that he had been fired from Northrop. He said he asked for a leave of absence but later learned that Northrop had only granted him a two-week leave.

Supervisors at Northrop could not be reached for comment.

Blow to Whole Family

The Redings are a middle-class family. To help pay legal costs of at least $35,000, his parents, Charles and Kathleen Reding, have had to sell their home in Milpitas in the Bay Area. Reding’s condominium, also owned by his parents, is for sale.

“This has been a blow to the whole family,” his mother said. Michael Reding has three sisters.

Earlier this week, Michael Reding knew that reality was but a phone call away. It came Thursday when a bailiff told him that the jury had reached a verdict.

“I know I’m going to prison,” he said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs said he will recommend 15 years to life imprisonment with two additional years for felony drunk-driving causing injury.