1 of 5 Deaths in Freeway Accident : Crash Victim Wanted to Sell Her Car

The last time Dennis Wilson saw his roommate, Ramona Bovard, 24, she told him she was determined to sell her 1976 Chrysler Cordoba because it was old and had caused her too many problems.

“She said: ‘This is it. I’m getting rid of this thing,’ ” Wilson, 33, of Garden Grove, said Monday.

But she never had an opportunity to do that. At 2 a.m. Sunday, Bovard was involved in a three-car collision on the Garden Grove Freeway that left her and four other people dead and the driver of the second car seriously injured.

A hospital official said Kwang (Jack) Kim, 28, of Tustin, was in stable condition Monday in the intensive care unit at Humana Hospital in Westminster.

His wife, Eun Kim, 24; brother, Danny Joo Kim, 23, of Santa Ana, and two friends, Ike Cho, 21, of Anaheim, and Chung Choi, 28, of Riverside, were passengers in his 1974 Chevrolet Cavalier when the accident happened.

Thrown From Car

Authorities believe that they were thrown out of the vehicle, which was eastbound on the freeway near Knott Street in Garden Grove. They died at the scene, authorities said.

David Kim, 25, of Santa Ana said Monday that his brother, Kwang, and his passengers were returning from a dinner in Los Angeles.

Kim said the Kims had been in good spirits lately and had many reasons to celebrate.

Danny Joo Kim, 23, a car salesman until three weeks ago, had become the manager of a new video store in Santa Ana, David Kim said.

“He was so happy about that,” David Kim said. “He was looking to start his own business after some training. He wanted his own video store.”

Kwang Kim had been moved from night shift to morning shift two weeks ago at the ITT Cannon company in Fountain Valley, where he worked with his wife, Eun. They have a year-old son named Simon, David Kim said.

California Highway Patrol Officer Bruce Mulligan said it could take investigators as long as a week to discover the cause of the crash.

Investigators believe that Bovard was speeding when her car swerved toward the center divider and then back across the freeway’s three lanes and collided with the Cavalier, Mulligan said.

A third car tried to avoid the crash by swerving toward the center divider but hit Bovard’s car and then the freeway divider, Mulligan said. Thomas Koch, 38, of Riverside was treated for minor injuries and released.

CHP officials request that anyone with any information about the accident contact them at (714) 892-4426.

Wilson, who had been Bovard’s roommate more than one year, said she may have been returning from her mother’s house in Harbor City Sunday morning when the accident occurred.

Wilson said Bovard, who worked as a kitchen helper at the Disneyland Hotel, was planning to borrow her mother’s Lincoln Continental for a while until she could sell her Cordoba and buy a new, “smaller, more economical car.”