Local News in Brief : Girl, 4, Killed as Car Runs Off Embankment

A 4-year-old Acton girl was killed and her mother was seriously injured Saturday after a car chase that ended when the car they were riding in plunged more than 150 feet over an embankment near Newhall, authorities said.

A California Highway Patrol spokesman said the car carrying Amy Odell and her mother, Brigette Odell, 27, was being chased by Michael Ward, the woman’s husband and the father of the girl.

Odell and her daughter had left their house about 9 p.m. in a car driven by Bryan Strauss, 27, of Sylmar, after an argument between Strauss and Ward, CHP spokesman Officer Harry Ingold said. “The disturbance at the house was apparently over Brigette’s friendship with Strauss,” Ingold said.

Ward, in his own car, followed Strauss, and within minutes the two men were involved in a high-speed chase driving westbound along the winding, two-lane Soledad Canyon Road, Ingold said.

“They were both doing about 65 m.p.h. when they rounded a sharp right curve, and Strauss skidded across the eastbound lane through the guard rail and over the embankment,” Ingold said.

Strauss fled before police arrived, but was arrested on suspicion of felony drunk driving several hours later after he returned to the accident scene, said James Morrow, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Strauss was later released on bail, Morrow said.

Ward, 30, is being held in Central Jail for more than $10,000 in outstanding traffic warrants.

Odell is listed in fair condition at the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia. She was treated for severe head injuries and abrasions, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Amy Odell, who was thrown from the car, was pronounced dead at the scene, Ingold said.