A Softball Game, Then Tragedy at Intersection

Sue Brasington left her daughter’s junior high school softball game in Brea on Thursday afternoon to help prepare an evening banquet at the Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, where she sang in the choir and worked as a full-time volunteer.

Just moments after she left Tamarack Park, an alleged drunk driver in a Ford pickup raced through a red light and slammed into her Chevrolet van, killing the Fullerton resident.

Friends of the family said that her husband, Mitchell, who was also watching their 14-year-old daughter, Courtney, play for Rosary Junior High School, heard the sound of the collision but did not learn until later that his wife had been killed.

“It’s tragic,” said Beverly Flick, a family friend who knew Brasington through Eastside Christian Church. “She was always looking out for other people. She loved doing things for other people.”

Police said the driver of the pickup truck, Steven Spaur, 30, of Whittier, was treated at Brea Community Hospital then arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and felony drunk driving. Spaur, who did not have a valid driver license, was being held in Orange County jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.

A group of Brasington’s friends, many of them members of her church, gathered at the family’s home on Skyline Drive early Friday to offer support and help in preparing for services.

No one expressed anger toward Spaur, Flick said. “We’ve been in prayer for him,” she added.

Brasington was described by her friends as a woman who loved to “serve” others.

“She was one of the sweetest people you’d want to know,” said Ralph Robson Christian education minister at Eastside. “She was totally committed to her family, to the church and to the Lord.”

Brasington worked as a secretary for the church’s music minister, taught a Bible class and sang in the choir. She worked full time on a volunteer basis for 4 years as a secretary, according to Tim Nuenschwander, minister of music at the church.

“She never wanted to be thanked for what she did,” he said. “She worked, doing whatever I needed done for however many hours it would take.”

When she wasn’t working in the church, Brasington liked to entertain.

“She enjoyed her friends probably more than anything,” said Linda Merold, a friend of Brasington for 6 years.

“Her home was always open to people who needed a meal or a place to stay,” she said. “The house was full of her children’s friends and adult friends. We (adults) always ended up at their house” after going out together, Merold said.

Mitchell Brasington owns a company based in El Paso and had been commuting between his business and the family’s Fullerton home for about a year and a half, friends said. Brasington had picked up her husband at Ontario airport before their daughter’s game and watched part of it with him before she left for church.

On Friday afternoon, about a dozen classmates of Brasington’s children--Chad, 16, who attends Troy High School, and Courtney--joined family and friends at the home.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Monday at Eastside Christian Church, 2505 E. Yorba Linda Blvd., Fullerton. Burial will be in Loma Vista Memorial Park, 701 E. Bastanchury Road, Fullerton.