Girl, 6, Asked if She Was Loved Before Tragedy

While walking her 6-year-old daughter to the doctor’s office here, Maria DeAvila thought it odd that little Pricila would repeatedly ask her how much she loved her.

Pricila, described by family friends as a “joyful child,” asked at least three times: “Do you love me very much?”

DeAvila’s friends said the young mother recalled the tragic irony of that brief conversation from her hospital bed at UCI Medical Center on Thursday night, shortly after being told that Pricila had died from massive injuries when a car struck both of them in a crosswalk.

Gilberto Bareno, a family friend, said Friday that when he and his wife, Maria, arrived at the hospital, DeAvila was in intensive care with head injuries and a fractured pelvis, but she was talking about her daughter.

“I am no longer going to have my little Pricila,” Gilberto Bareno recalled DeAvila as saying. “She already knew. She said the girl was the most important thing to her.”

DeAvila and her daughter were hit shortly after 7:30 a.m. while crossing Crowther Avenue at Melrose Street. The driver, Sean Eric Hannam, 22, of Brea, told police that he was blinded by the early morning sunlight and didn’t see the mother and child.

Traffic Sgt. Jay Fricke said that Hannam was cited Friday with failure to yield to a pedestrian, a misdemeanor traffic violation. Fricke said he will also recommend to the Orange County district attorney’s office that a second charge of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter be filed.

Fricke said a determination on the manslaughter charge, punishable by up to a year in jail, would have to be made by the district attorney’s office.

Hannam told police that he had been traveling east on Crowther when he stopped at the intersection for a stop sign, then continued through. Police, who estimated the car’s speed at 15 to 20 m.p.h., said Hannam stopped again when he felt a thump and saw that DeAvila had been thrown onto the hood of his gold, 1971 Chevrolet Impala.

Fricke said Pricila was dragged a short distance under the car.

“He (Hannam) was still pretty upset when I talked to him this morning,” Fricke said Friday. “There was no evidence that I could find to indicate that it was an unsafe speed.”

Bareno, 46, who works with DeAvila at a Brea bingo-supply distributor, said he regularly provided DeAvila with a ride to work from her Fullerton home. Through their association at work, he said, DeAvila and his wife became good friends and the two families shared meals and frequent visits.

Most nights, when he drove DeAvila home after work, Pricila would always greet him with a kiss, Bareno said.

“She was a joyful kid, energetic,” he said. “My wife really took it hard.”

Bareno said he will always remember when Pricila accompanied his two daughters shopping.

“One of her dreams and wishes was to have a new pair of shoes,” he said.

Thursday night, Bareno was called upon to drive a family member to the coroner’s office so that Pricila’s body could be properly identified, he said.

Henry Sanchez, DeAvila’s supervisor, said that DeAvila is one of his best employees who missed work only if her daughter needed medical attention.

Sanchez said that when word of the accident reached the store Thursday, he called his employees together and allowed them to leave early so that they could visit the hospital.

“Everybody knows everybody here,” Sanchez said.