Car-Truck Crash Kills 3 Teen-Agers : Moorpark: Sixty friends of two of the victims hold a memorial march along Los Angeles Avenue. They place a cross at the site.

Two Moorpark high school students and a Camarillo teen-ager were killed when their car plowed into the rear of a tractor-trailer on an unlit stretch of a two-lane street in Moorpark, authorities said Sunday.

The driver, 19-year-old Ramon Padron of Camarillo, and his two 16-year-old passengers, Jesus Corralejo III and Joseph Zuniga, both of Moorpark, were pronounced dead shortly after the crash late Saturday, according to the Ventura County coroner’s office.

In memory of the dead Moorpark youths, about 60 friends marched along Los Angeles Avenue on Sunday afternoon, carrying a white cross that they placed at the accident site. At the base of the cross, they put a strip of bent chrome from Padron’s crushed automobile.

The young friends said they carried the three-foot-high wooden cross for two miles to honor Zuniga and Corralejo, who were members of their Moorpark gang.

“We want to show some respect for our homeboys,” said Charles Gross, 16.

Audrey Soto, also 16, said Zuniga and Corralejo were going to a party in Camarillo when they were killed.

As the friends lingered into the chilly evening to pray, they were joined by the Corralejo family.

“It’s nice, real nice,” said Jesus Corralejo Jr., father of one of the victims, staring tearfully at the cross. Then he motioned to the surrounding teen-agers and added, “learn from this, you guys. Your parents love you all.”

Spokesmen for the coroner and the Sheriff’s Department said they did not know whether alcohol was a factor in the accident. But coroner’s investigator Dale Zentzis said one beer can was found in Padron’s car.

“They were pinned in the vehicle, just crunched,” Zentzis said.

The three youths died instantly of massive trauma to their chests and heads after Padron’s car plowed into the back of a truck driven by Ernesto Gonzales, 40, of Calexico, who was uninjured.

Authorities said they did not know how fast the car was traveling when it rammed the truck, which had slowed to about 10 miles per hour to make a turn off Los Angeles Avenue into a vegetable processing plant. Gonzales was not cited in the crash.

Corralejo said his son was a sophomore at Moorpark High School, where he played football as a freshman. His oldest son “just liked to be with his friends,” the father said.

Valerie Arzabal, who described herself as a close friend of Padron’s, said the teen-ager had been a boys soccer coach in Camarillo.

Zuniga’s family could not be reached except for cousin Santiago Arteaga, 22, who said the boy recently transferred from Moorpark High School to a continuation school to make up class credits he’d lost.

The fatal collision occurred about 10:20 p.m. Saturday as Padron and Corralejo, with Zuniga in the back seat, were heading west on Los Angeles Avenue. Just ahead, Gonzales had slowed his 44-foot-long rig to turn left into Muranaka Farm to pick up a load of vegetables, Zentzis said.

Padron smashed into the produce truck, with the front of his car crunching under the trailer, Zentzis said. The coroner will conduct toxicology tests to determine if Padron was intoxicated, the investigator said.

Tragically, Corralejo’s parents saw the accident scene from a distance shortly before learning their son was one of the victims.

Jesus Corralejo Jr. said he, his wife, their 10-year-old son and a nephew were heading home from a friend’s house in Camarillo about an hour after the accident when they were forced to detour onto a side street.

After Corralejo reached home, a friend called him to say his oldest son was seen riding in Padron’s car earlier in the evening.

“I just got nervous and checked it out quick,” Corralejo said.

Returning to the accident scene, Corralejo said deputies told him that his son was dead, but the officers wouldn’t let him near the demolished vehicle.

The accident scene--a narrow, unlit portion of Los Angeles Avenue west of Tierra Rejada Road--can be dangerous, Moorpark residents said.

“That whole two-lane (road) to Ventura is not good,” said Carol White, who has lived in Moorpark for 49 years. “It’s a bad highway.”

White said she knows of no other fatal collisions on that straight stretch of Los Angeles Avenue. But she said she’s had friends killed in accidents about a mile west, where the road bends.

Moorpark City Councilman Bernardo M. Perez said that Moorpark residents have long been concerned about trucks at Muranaka Farm turning off the roadway and onto it. But he said that “anyone approaching the area can see there would be the possibility of trucks leaving and entering.”

Perez said city officials plan to eventually widen Los Angeles Avenue to cope with increased traffic congestion, but that there are no short-term proposals to add a left-turn lane at Muranaka Farm.