Joy-Riding Boy Blamed in Woman’s Death : 11-Year-Old, Driving the Family RV, Rammed Car During Police Chase

An 11-year-old boy joy riding in his family’s motor home hit a car broadside in front of the Fullerton police station while being pursued Tuesday night, killing an elderly woman and injuring her husband.

Police said the grade-school student, who stands just over four feet tall, had taken his parents’ 24-foot Dodge motor home from their Garden Grove home and had been driving it “most of the afternoon,” possibly as far as Pomona.

At about 7 p.m., a man called police and reported that “a little kid” was driving a motor home southbound on Harbor Boulevard from Imperial Highway, Fullerton Police Sgt. Jeff Roop said.

A dispatcher broadcast the license number, and an officer spotted the coach near Harbor and Commonwealth Avenue, Roop said. As the officer pulled behind, honking and flashing his red lights, the boy accelerated slightly for about a block, running a red light and striking a 1986 Toyota sedan.

Margaret Doris Rooney, 72, of Fullerton, a passenger in the compact car, died at UCI Medical Center about four hours after the crash. An autopsy Wednesday showed that she died of chest injuries, an Orange County coroner’s office spokesman said.

Her husband, Daniel Francis Rooney, 81, who had been driving the car, was treated for minor head cuts.

Roop said the elderly couple live about five blocks from the police station.

The boy was questioned by detectives and then released to his parents Tuesday night.

Roop would not identify the boy, a fifth-grader, because he is a juvenile, but he said: “I’m sure he and his family are not doing too well right now.”

After the crash, the boy hopped out of the motor home and ran down the street, ducking inside a Coco’s restaurant about a mile from the crash site, Roop said. The boy called his parents from a pay phone, and they picked him up at the restaurant and took him to the police station.

According to Roop, it may not have been the first phone call from their son that afternoon.

The parents, who also were not identified, had not been questioned at length, but investigators said the boy apparently had called them from Pomona. That was when they first discovered the motor home missing, Roop said.

“They asked the kid where he was, and he gave them an address. And they looked it up in the map book and tried to find him, (but) they thought it was in Riverside,” Roop said. “And they couldn’t find him, so they went for help” to the Garden Grove police headquarters.”

Traffic Officer Kevin Scanlon, who questioned the boy briefly, described him as being “a small guy . . . probably about 4-foot-3.” But police said he could reach the gas pedal.

Roop said it was doubtful that any criminal charges would be filed against the youth.

“I would just think it’s unlikely that we can do anything about this,” Roop said. “The kid is just so young that it’ll be hard to prove that he knew what might happen. It’s just a tragedy for everyone: the couple, the kid and the kid’s parents. Its just one of those bad news stories.”