VENTURA : Woman Dies in Plunge Off Freeway Bridge

A 66-year-old woman died Wednesday after falling or jumping from the California Street Bridge above the Ventura Freeway, authorities said.

Lucille Machado, who lived alone in a Ventura apartment, died instantly after tumbling from the overpass onto the right shoulder of the northbound side of the busy freeway, said Zelmira Isaac, senior deputy coroner.

Despite interviewing a number of witnesses, investigators on Wednesday were uncertain whether the woman fell from the 22-foot-high bridge or jumped.

But Isaac said the death “appears to be” deliberate.

A woman driving south on the Ventura Freeway at 11:24 a.m. said Machado appeared to slip while reaching for a piece of plastic over the side of the bridge.

“It was like she was grabbing something and fell over,” said the witness, who declined to give her name. “I saw her going down and I saw her hit.”

Other witnesses told police that Machado had twice entered the nearby Carrow’s restaurant moments before she died to first use the restroom and then ask for a cup to be filled with water.

“She looked quiet, not really sociable,” said Carrow’s waiter Max Ortiz, who gave her the water. After the fall, a cup with pink lipstick on the straw set on the bridge, close to where Machado would have been standing.

Machado is survived by a sister in Weaver, Ala., Isaac said.