Wrong-Way Driver Had Troubles, Family Says

Margaret Solis said she knew her husband was in pain and had been having some tough times, but she still can’t figure out why it happened.

Margaret and other family members sat inside their West Anaheim home Monday evening, talking about the man who police say was driving the wrong way on the Orange Freeway and caused a two-car accident that killed him and three other people.

“In the 10 years that I’ve known him, he was a hard-working man who thought of his family first,” she said.

Police say Jose Asuncion Solis Tenorio was traveling about 75 m.p.h. on the freeway in Anaheim at 9:20 Sunday morning when he crashed head-on into a car carrying a Hacienda Heights couple and an elderly woman. The second car was traveling about 60 m.p.h., the CHP said.

Gene Jolley Stone, 67, of Hacienda Heights, who was driving, her husband, Joics Stone, 70, who was riding in the front seat, and Ida Holt, 89, of Long Beach, who is believed to be Mrs. Stone’s mother and who was in the back seat, were killed.

The Stones were traveling to church at the time of the collision.

CHP Officer Paul Caldwell, who described the accident as “one of the worst” he had ever seen, said neither car slowed before impact.

Authorities are awaiting the results of an autopsy and toxicological tests in seeking the cause of the accident.

“At this point we have nothing at all to indicate that alcohol was taken or had been used,” a CHP spokesman said Monday.

Solis’ relatives Monday rejected the idea that the 32-year-old father of two had either been drinking or could have intentionally driven his car in the wrong direction Sunday morning.

Solis, a driver for an Anaheim trucking firm, had been on disability leave resulting from a Nov. 17 accident in Glendale in which another motorist ran a red light and hit a truck he was in.

‘What Good Am I?’

Relatives said Solis had been depressed because of mounting financial pressure and pain from a persistent back injury suffered in the November accident.

Solis also worried about losing his small two-bedroom home in West Anaheim, which his family said was to be torn down to make way for a commercial development. They also said his disability payments were discontinued last week.

According to Solis’ wife, he recently said to her: “What good am I to you? What good am I now to you?’ ”

Maria Ortiz, Margaret Solis’ sister, said: “It’s going to be hard for (Margaret). She has to practically start from scratch.”

She said that before the accident, Solis had been a hard-working individual who loved his wife and children.

Said Ray Ortiz, Maria’s husband, “I don’t think he would try and hurt anybody.”

Maria Ortiz said Solis was always the peacemaker of the family. She said that when there was an argument among the family members, Solis always stepped in. “Of course, he’d get mad but he had a better way of seeing reality,” she said.

Solis had consulted with several doctors about his back pain, his wife said, but they kept telling him that he was physically able to return to work.

“He couldn’t even bend down to pick up a pen,” Maria Ortiz said. “Just by looking at the expression on his face, you could see that he was in pain.”

She said the two Solis children, ages 8 and 4, who were watching television Monday night, had not been told of their father’s death.

The family was notified of Solis’ death Monday morning. “I just can’t accept the truth,” said Maria Ortiz, who said she looked up to Solis like a big brother. “I keep reading about it in the paper and I’m just waiting to wake up.”