Man Learns of Family Tragedy on Phone Answering Machine

His son’s panicked, but brief, cry for help on the family’s telephone answering machine was what Bill Cramer of Glendale went home to late Wednesday night.

When he had left for a meeting three hours earlier, he said goodby to his wife, Valerie, 32, and daughter, Brianna, 9, who were heading out for a walk with his son, Billy, 11, and two neighbors.

When he got home, his house was empty. “Normally, Valerie would come running over and give me a kiss,” Cramer said Thursday, “but there was nothing.” Then he turned on the answering machine and heard his son’s voice.

“I started crying,” Cramer said. “I ran out of the house and my father caught me. He said it was very, very bad.”

Shortly after 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, the three Cramers along with neighbors Patricia Carr, 36, and her daughter, Karen, 6, were waiting on a median strip in a Glendale intersection to cross the street when a suspected drunk driver lost control of his car and plowed into them.

Both of the Carrs and Brianna, called Breezy by her family, were killed instantly. Valerie Cramer was taken to a nearby hospital where she died a short time after. The only survivor, Billy, suffered a broken hand.

Bill Cramer said he picked up his son at the hospital and took him to his parents’ home, just a few houses away from his own.

“His first comment was, ‘Daddy, have you called to see how mom is?’ ” Cramer said. “I said, ‘Billy, you have to be real quiet. You have to listen to daddy real carefully.’ I said, ‘Breezy and mommy . . . have gone to heaven.’ And that’s when it finally hit me that they were gone.”

Police arrested William K. Conway, 27, of Glendale on suspicion of drunk driving, said Sgt. Dean Durand, spokesman for the Glendale Police Department.

Police said Conway, a part-time maintenance worker for the Glendale Parks and Recreation Division, was speeding south on Canada Boulevard near Oakmont Country Club when he lost control of his car. Police said his blood alcohol level was 0.15%; California law presumes a motorist drunk at 0.1%.

Rubina Arshakian, who lives near the accident scene, said she was inside her house when the accident happened.

“I heard the noise and ran outside and saw a lot of smoke and dirt,” she said. “After it faded away, I saw the bodies.”

It was from Arshakian’s phone that Billy Cramer made the desperate call to his father.

A neighbor, Jean White, said she was working in her yard and was about to go inside when she heard the commotion and saw Conway’s car slide to a stop in front of her house.

“He ran out of the car and must have seen me here, and yelled, ‘For God’s sake! Call the ambulance and police, there’s a body down!’ It reminded me of a war zone out here last night.”

White’s husband, Grover, said he has seen many accidents in front of his home in the 30 years he has been there. He attributes many of them to a merging of lanes on Canada Boulevard.

He said he has pleaded unsuccessfully with city officials to paint merge arrows in the road, which slopes downward through a curve into the intersection.

However, Glendale officials said few accidents have occurred at the intersection of Canada Boulevard and Verdugo Road since the city took over the roadway from Caltrans in 1983. The road was a state highway until the Glendale Freeway opened. Eight accidents have occurred at the intersection since then, all non-injury, said Kahtan B. Bayati, acting city traffic engineer.

The Carr family was not available Thursday but Cramer, along with his mother, brother and sister, said they were willing to talk about their own tragedy to dramatize the need for tougher laws.

“They need to know what a waste this was and that they shouldn’t drink and drive,” he said. “If nothing else comes out of what happened, I hope the lawmakers or somebody responsible will do something to make it ugly for people who drink and drive.”

Cramer said his wife, a dental assistant in Glendale, had recently become an avid walker who walked 6 miles every morning and sometimes, such as Wednesday, took her children on evening walks with her.

“Valerie was a ray of sunshine 24 hours a day,” said her mother-in-law, Barbara Cramer. “She always had a smile. She always had an upbeat thought. . . . She will be deeply missed.” Brianna, was described by her family as a shy child who had just completed the third grade at Verdugo Woodlands Elementary School. She loved dolls and roller skating, her father said.

“We called her Breezy since she was a baby,” Cramer said. “It was her personality.”

Times staff writer Martha Willman contributed to this story.