Woman Dies in Crash Involving Runaways : Accident: Authorities say the two youths from South Carolina were fleeing police in a stolen truck.

A Palmdale mother was killed when her car was hit by a stolen truck carrying two boys, 12- and 15-year-old runaways from South Carolina, that went through a stop sign as they fled from police, authorities said Wednesday.

Authorities said they intend to charge the older boy with second-degree murder.

The victim, Deborah Jean Tabata, 39, was heading home after visiting her brother in Lancaster when she was killed in the crash Tuesday night.

“She had stopped by her brother’s to help his kids rehearse for a school play,” said Lynn Goodwin, Tabata’s sister-in-law.

The 15-year-old driver of the pickup truck underwent surgery for a ruptured spleen Wednesday and the other boy was in fair condition at Antelope Valley Medical Center in Lancaster.

The boys had run away from homes in Ladson, S. C., just north of Charleston, Clark said.

The half-hour chase began at 7:22 p.m. Tuesday on California 138 in San Bernardino County, where sheriff’s deputies stopped the boys for a traffic violation and they sped away. It continued into Lancaster, where the driver of the pickup, traveling at 90 m.p.h., went through a stop sign at 50th Street East and Avenue I, ramming Tabata’s car, authorities said.

The pickup truck then slammed into a power pole and burst into flames.

The remains of a rifle were found in the wreckage and two pistols, which deputies believed the boys threw out of the truck before the crash, were recovered along the freeway.

One of the boys told Clark from the hospital that they didn’t want to get caught and be sent back to South Carolina.

Authorities said the 12-year-old boy told them that he drove his stepfather’s truck to his friend’s house and the two drove across the country in three days, arriving in California during the weekend.

Authorities believed the boys chose California because the 15-year-old juvenile had once lived in Palmdale.