3 Killed in Weekend Accidents; 2 Drivers Arrested on Suspicion of Drunk Driving

Three people were killed in separate traffic accidents Friday night and early Saturday, two of them involving drivers arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

In one accident, a car crashed against the side of a house in Anaheim next to a bedroom where a 72-year-old woman was sleeping. A passenger in the car was killed in the crash, which occurred at 3 a.m. Saturday, police said.

Leobardo M. Brito, 24, of Anaheim was dead at the scene. The car in which he was riding went out of control at a high rate of speed on East La Palma Avenue, just west of Sunkist Street, and struck an unoccupied, parked pickup before hitting the house, police said.

The driver, Ruperto R. Brito, was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition. A second passenger, Savas B. Estrada, 21, of Costa Mesa was taken to the same hospital, where his condition was listed Saturday as stable. Police had no information about whether the driver, described as a young man, and the man killed were related.

Witnesses said Ruperto Brito was driving perhaps as fast as 100 m.p.h. when his car struck the pickup on the north side of the street, then bounced across the street and hit the stone wall of a house in the 2400 block of East La Palma. Margaret Reimer, the owner of the house, lives there alone.

“I thought it was an earthquake,” said Reimer, who added that she ran to a doorway seeking safety. “It was a horrible sound.”

Reimer, who was uninjured, said there was considerable damage to her house and that the front walls buckled under the force of the crash.

“I was asleep just on the other side from where the car hit. If I hadn’t had that stone front, I don’t know what would have happened,” she said.

A neighbor, Karen Hersom, said the pickup was shoved up a telephone pole and wrapped partly around it. She said it appeared to have been cut almost in half. She said that when Brito’s car struck the pickup, “it was the most horrible noise you’ve ever heard.”

Ruperto Brito, who remains hospitalized, was booked on suspicion of felony drunk driving, Anaheim Police Sgt. Chet Barry said.

In an earlier accident, at 10:35 p.m Friday, a 16-year-old girl was killed when the northbound car in which she was a passenger allegedly ran a red light at the intersection of Puente Street and Imperial Highway in Brea.

The driver was Mohammad Tarighi, 23, of Yorba Linda. His car collided with a vehicle driven by Jose Quiroga, 21, of Los Angeles, who was heading west on the Imperial Highway, Brea Police Lt. Cliff Trimble said.

The victim, identified as Diane Starr Puentes of Whittier, died at the scene. Another passenger in the Tarighi car, an infant not immediately identified, suffered minor injuries.

Tarighi was arrested on suspicion of felony drunk driving, vehicular manslaughter and child endangerment, and his bail was set at $25,000.

Quiroga, who was treated for a head injury at St. Jude Hospital in Fullerton, was cited for misdemeanor drunk driving and released.

The third accident occurred at 2:08 a.m. Saturday in Fullerton when a motorcyclist was killed in a collision with a small pickup.

Police Sgt. Bud Lathrop said the motorcyclist, Mark C. Vigil, 19, of Fullerton, apparently ran a stoplight as he headed west on Valencia Drive at a high rate of speed. He collided with the pickup driven by Jose A. Avila Jr., 20, of Garden Grove, who was heading north on Brookhurst Road.

Vigil was pronounced dead on arrival at Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim.

Lathrop said there was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Avila, who was not injured.

Vigil was not wearing a helmet, Lathrop said.