More Cocaine Found in Auto Involved in Fiery Crash Deaths

Detectives have found nearly $7,000 worth of cocaine in the car that crashed into another early Sunday morning, killing a Laguna Niguel woman and a baby sitter, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Wednesday.

On Tuesday afternoon, sheriff’s deputies bearing a search warrant searched the car belonging to Richard Harold Wallinger and found 3.5 ounces of cocaine broken down into 42 bindles of various sizes, Sheriff’s Lt. Larry Richey said.

A bindle is a small package of cocaine.

6 Packets Found Earlier

California Highway Patrol officers who searched Wallinger’s car after the crash Sunday morning had found six bindles of cocaine, which were described “as something you might use in one evening.”

Richey would not say what had tipped investigators to the presence of the additional cocaine in the car, which reportedly was impounded at an El Toro towing lot.

The lieutenant said he did not know if Wallinger faced any new charges as a result of the discovery of the additional cocaine.

Wallinger, a South Laguna resident, has already been charged with two counts of manslaughter and one count of felony drunk driving.

Richey did not say if Wallinger faced any additional charges as a result of Tuesday’s cocaine find.

The fatal accident occured around 2 a.m. Sunday on Coast Highway in Laguna Niguel.

Both Cars Exploded

Witnesses said Wallinger’s car plowed into the one carrying Lynne Chaney, 38, and Kelly Erin Sawyer, 13.

Both cars exploded in a ball of flame. Chaney and the teen-ager were burned beyond recognition.

Wallinger was treated in the jail ward at UCI Medical Center, and later transferred to Orange County Jail.

Chaney, the mother of two small children, had hired Kelly Sawyer, an eighth-grade student at Niguel Hills Junior High School, to baby-sit that evening. She was driving the youngster home, also in Laguna Niguel, when the accident occurred.

Chaney was divorced, and her former husband now lives in Europe, neighbors said. Chaney’s children, a first- and second-grader, are being cared for by their grandparents.

Wallinger, 25, is reportedly an unemployed automobile salesman with no criminal record. His neighbors said they knew little about him.