Father to 12 Dies When Hit Head-On by Stolen Vehicle

Nine of the dozen children of a San Carlos man had planned to take him out to dinner on Sunday as a Father’s Day treat. Instead, they will gather Wednesday to bury him.

Dennis Dalton, vice president and quality control supervisor at a National City machine shop, died instantly early Friday morning on his way to work. His pickup truck was struck head-on by the driver of a stolen car who was fleeing police and was driving the wrong way in the fast lanes of Interstate 15.

Dalton, 47, was southbound on I-15 near Market Street in San Diego about 4:30 a.m. when the fleeing wrong-way driver came from the Market Street off-ramp and collided with him, police said. Dalton died instantly, police said, and the unidentified driver of the stolen car is in UC San Diego Medical Center in critical condition with head injuries.

“He always went to work that early in the morning,” Dalton’s stepson, Robert Slavey, said Friday. “Until last month, when my mom persuaded him to go in an hour later, he had been going to work at 3 a.m.” Dalton had been working at the Master Machine Corp. for 21 years, ever since he finished a four-year hitch in the Navy.

Police spokesman Bill Robinson detailed the events that led up to the fatal accident: A police cruiser had followed the driver of a pickup truck after the driver failed to stop for a stop sign on Market Street. The chase began after the driver refused to heed the officers’ orders to pull to the curb, Robinson said.

The driver then turned onto the off-ramp and headed north in the fast lane of southbound I-15, striking Dalton’s pickup head-on.

A California Highway Patrol spokesman said the unidentified wrong-way driver will be charged with vehicular manslaughter and auto theft. The pickup he was driving was not reported stolen until after the fatal accident occurred.

Dalton, a 26-year resident of San Diego, was the head of a household that included 12 children, seven of whom still live at home.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce; a daughter, Lori Davi, and two sons, Keith and Kevin, all of Salt Lake City; and two stepsons, Robert and Brian Slavey of San Diego. At home are two of Dalton’s nephews whom he and his wife had raised; two foster children, ages 7 and 9; two recently adopted girls, ages 5 and 8, and their 14-month-old brother, whom the Daltons were in the process of adopting.

“We were all going to take him out for dinner Sunday, for Father’s Day,” Robert Slavey said. “He was the nicest guy in the world. Everybody loved him.

“When we kids grew up and moved out of the house, he and my mom took in two of his nephews and did such a good job raising them that they figured that, with the crying need for foster parents, they could handle some more.

“It isn’t fair that this guy that no one could say anything bad about should get killed by some crazy wrong-way driver.”

Times staff writer Nancy Ray contributed to this story.