Crashes Kill 2, Injure 9 on Nordhoff Street

In about eight hours, two people were killed and nine others injured in traffic accidents on Nordhoff Street in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles police said Friday.

“Nordhoff was not the street to be on,” said traffic division Detective Henson Dial.

In the first accident, at 11:30 p.m. Thursday, a passenger was killed in Northridge when a car hit a street light and then a tree, Dial said. Three other passengers in the car suffered minor injuries and the driver fled the wreckage.

The Mustang in which the five men were riding was going west on Nordhoff near Reseda Boulevard when it went out of control and sheared off a light pole before hitting a tree.

The car was torn in half by the impact and one man died instantly, police said. The victim’s identity was not yet known.

Witnesses told police that the unidentified driver ran from the car after the accident. Dial said police were attempting to locate the Mustang’s owner to determine if he was the driver or if he knows who was driving the car. The injured passengers were treated and released from the hospital and did not provide any information about the driver to police.

At 11:45 p.m., at Nordhoff near Costello Avenue in Panorama City, two elderly women were struck by a car as they attempted to cross the street, Officer Dennis Smith said. Edythe Renninger, 84, of Panorama City, was killed, and Mary Casey, 74, of Panorama City, suffered minor injuries.

The car’s driver, George Holtz, 76, also of Panorama City, was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting the women, who were jaywalking, police said. Holtz was not cited, Smith said.

At about 7:45 a.m. Friday, an eastbound Volkswagen carrying four people was struck head-on by another car on Nordhoff near Oso Street in Chatsworth. The driver of the other car and all four people in the Volkswagen were injured, two of them critically, and were treated at three local hospitals.

Firefighters had to cut the top off the Volkswagen to remove two young women who were trapped in the back of the car.

The identities of those involved in the accident were unavailable.