Series of Hit-Run Accidents End in Deaths : Crash: A man and woman apparently took turns driving a car that had been involved in four other accidents. Three people died in the final collision in Lemon Grove.

Three people were killed in Lemon Grove Friday when a car that had just been involved in a series of hit-and-run accidents crashed head-on into another car.

The victims included the woman who was driving a Toyota Cressida that had been in four other crashes and a man and elderly woman who were in the other car.

The driver of the Toyota was identified as Anne Howard, 39, of La Mesa, coroner’s investigator Brenda Cummings said.

The two people in the other car were identified as Mary S. Counts, 88, of Spring Valley, and Charles Fulkerson, 48, a resident of the Santa Monica area, Cummings said. All three died at the scene.

The series of crashes began at 12:30 p.m. when Ronald Gene Parnell, driving the white Toyota with Howard as a passenger, rear-ended a car at Sweetwater Road and Blossom Lane, said a California Highway Patrol spokesman.

No one was injured in that crash. Parnell then allegedly fled south on Sweetwater Road, hitting a van at Jamacha Boulevard in Spring Valley.

Again no one was injured.

Parnell then apparently made a U-turn and headed north on Sweetwater Road, the CHP said.

Soon afterward, however, the Toyota, now being driven by Howard, crashed into a car port in the Lakeview Manor Mobile Lodge at Jamacha Boulevard and Omega Street in Spring Valley, the CHP reported.

Parnell briefly got out of the car, but then got back in. Then the woman, with Parnell still passenger, drove out of the area and hit a black pickup truck on Sweetwater Road, just south of Troy Street, and kept going, the CHP said.

Then, authorities said, the Toyota hit the east guardrail and veered into oncoming traffic, crashing head-on into the tan Dodge driven by Fulkerson.

The fatal collision occurred about 1:15 p.m.

Parnell, a 37-year-old Ramona resident, was flown to Mercy Hospital by Life Flight helicopter. He was listed in stable condition, hospital spokeswoman Patty Knighton said.

Traffic on Sweetwater Road in the vicinity of the accident was closed off until shortly after 5 p.m., authorities said.

Authorities are investigating whether the pair in the Toyota Cressida had been driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.