Tustin Boy, 10, Killed, 4 Injured in 3-Car Collision

Robert Taylor Jr. lived, breathed and dreamed sports.

The lanky 10-year-old from Tustin had just received a medal from the Tustin Boys and Girls Club for his basketball skills and had recently performed a soliloquy he wrote to fellow churchgoers, pretending to be baseball star Jackie Robinson.

“He loves sports,” said his uncle, Kirk Dyer, on Monday. “That’s what he likes to do.”

But the boy’s dream of being a professional athlete came to a tragic end at a busy intersection Sunday afternoon, when an alleged drunk driver rear-ended his mother’s car and killed him almost instantly.

The three-car collision at 3:17 p.m. left his 29-year-old mother, Griselda Taylor, in critical condition with a spinal fracture at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. She was not immediately told that her son had been killed.

Robert’s 8-year-old brother, Lionel, suffered a gash on his forehead, while a fourth passenger, Curtis Marshall Smith Jr., also 8, suffered minor injuries. Police were not immediately able to say whether any of the car’s occupants were wearing seat belts.

Curtis’ father, Charles Marshall Smith Sr., an El Toro Marine sergeant serving in Saudi Arabia and Griselda Taylor’s fiance, is expected to return to Orange County by Friday, Dyer said.

“That’s how good a person she (Griselda Taylor) is,” said Dyer, 37. “She even agreed to be the boy’s guardian while his dad was gone.”

The alleged drunk driver, identified as Don Currie Edwards, 46, of Santa Ana, received minor injuries. He faces two counts of driving while under the influence of alcohol and one count of vehicular manslaughter.

Edwards, a laborer who reportedly tried to leave the scene following the accident but was stopped by witnesses, was being held at Orange County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bail.

An arraignment in Central Municipal Court was scheduled for this morning, Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Richard J. Olson said.

“Officers smelled alcohol at the scene,” said Santa Ana Police Department spokeswoman Maureen Haacker, adding that results of blood-alcohol level tests would not be available for at least a week.

Dyer said his sister and the boys, all devout Baptists, had spent a lively day at the Starlight Baptist Church in Santa Ana, where they participated in an after-service social.

During the social, with the congregation’s youngsters dressed up in Western attire, the church pastor singled out Robert for his above-average grades and athletic abilities.

The family was on its way home when Griselda Taylor stopped for a red light in the left-turn lane at the intersection of 1st and Bristol streets.

Without warning, Edwards, who was allegedly driving at a high rate of speed, plowed his Dodge van into Griselda Taylor’s Hyundai, pushing her into the middle of the intersection. The Hyundai was then broadsided by an oncoming car.

Suffering a fractured fourth or fifth vertebra, Griselda Taylor did not know on Monday that her oldest son had died.

“We’ll play it by ear,” Dyer said when asked when she will be told of her son’s death. During the day, family members steered her away from the subject of her children’s conditions by making small talk and reassuring her that she will heal fully.

“We just tried to get her to laugh,” Dyer said, “and talk about other things, anything.”