4-Year Term Given in Death of Man, Daughter in Drunk-Driving Accident

An Anaheim man who pleaded guilty to killing a Santa Ana father of six and his teen-age daughter in a drunk-driving accident on March 28 was sentenced Monday to four years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Luis Cardenas sentenced Candido Diaguerro Castrejon, 28, to state prison for the deaths of Jose Contreras Jr., 34, and Christine Contreras, 14.

“To me it wasn’t enough because in that time he’s going to do, he’s not going to bring my family back,” said Jose Contreras’ wife, Antonia, who is raising their other five children, ages 2 to 17. “The other kids have nightmares and cry a lot, asking for their father and sister.”

Castrejon pleaded guilty to seven felony and misdemeanor counts, including gross vehicular manslaughter, stemming from two accidents in the early morning hours of March 28, said Dan Skinner, the Contreras family’s attorney.

The maximum sentence he faced was 13 years, but through a plea bargain he received a four-year jail term, Skinner said.

Authorities said Castrejon struck the Contrerases’ car when he ran a red light at Katella and Magnolia avenues in Stanton just after midnight. He was fleeing a minor collision with a car just two blocks away.

Jose Contreras, a manager at a screw distribution company in Orange, died instantly.

His daughter, an eighth-grader at Spurgeon Junior High School who had hoped to become a model, died hours later at UCI Medical Center.

A niece of Jose Contreras also was in the car and suffered a broken arm.