Friends, Family Remember Good Times : Tragedy: They seek to cope with loss of two 16-year-old Fountain Valley boys in automobile crash.

Candace Starr’s minivan was in the shop Tuesday, so she hitched a ride at lunchtime with her 16-year-old son, Greg, and his friends in a vintage red Mustang.

The boys dropped her off at an automotive center at Adams Avenue and Brookhurst Street. They still had time to go out for pizza before one of them had to be at a driver’s education class at 1 p.m.

“They were laughing on the way. They thought it was funny to have me in the car with them,” Candace Starr, a Fountain Valley teacher, recalled Wednesday. “That was the last time I saw him.”

A day later, Starr and her husband, Tom, both 46, were making funeral arrangements for their only son, Greg Starr, who died in the crash with his boyhood friend, Mike Mize, also 16. Both boys grew up in the Greenbrook community, where neighbors on Wednesday had volunteered to cook dinners and run errands for the families, including picking up the minivan from the shop. They gathered in their home and front yard to share a hug and some kind words about the Fountain Valley High School students. And they shared memories, like the time Starr injured his collarbone tripping in a parking lot because he was rushing home to make his 11 p.m. curfew, Tom Starr said.

“You tell the people out there that he was a good kid. We love him and we’re going to miss him so much,” Starr said.

Just before 1 p.m. Tuesday, his son and Mize were in the back seat of the 1968 Mustang speeding west on Ellis Avenue when it clipped another car and spun out of control. The Mustang rolled over, hit a tree and crashed into a telephone pole and a wall behind it, police said.

The car had been going at least 70 m.p.h. in a 40-m.p.h. zone, police said Wednesday.

Starr and Mize, best friends who were looking forward to their junior year, died on impact. Brian Tuseth, 16-year-old driver of the Mustang, and Adelle M. Park, 52, driver of the car it clipped, were in stable condition at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, a hospital spokeswoman said.

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Lisa Nielsen, who was a front-seat passenger in the Mustang, was treated at UCI Medical Center in Orange and was scheduled to be released Wednesday.

Friends, relatives and people who had never met the boys streamed to the crash site Tuesday night to leave bouquets. Many of them stayed past 4 a.m. Wednesday, sitting on the curb talking about the accident and signing poster boards taped to the cinder block wall with messages such as “We Love You.”

So many people visited the site resident Debbie Heer installed two spotlights in her back yard for the mourners so “no one else will get hit by a car,” she said.

Early Wednesday, many teen-agers were back to leave more pictures, flowers and an announcement of a gathering from 4 to 7 p.m. today at the Greenbrook Homeowners Assn.’s clubhouse on Santa Joanana Street, across from Starr’s house.

“We feel like we need to get together to talk about this,” said Lisa Nimmo, who has known Mize since kindergarten.

Both boys had known each other since elementary school and lived a few blocks from one another. Last week, they went to Lake Tahoe with their families, where their goal was to get a tan.

“The whole week, they kept turning the waistband [of their shorts] down to check on their tan lines,” Tom Starr said. “They were funny kids. They always made us laugh.”

Starr had a 4.2 grade-point average and was involved in basketball and track. His father, a banker, had saved two days of his vacation to spend with his son at track meets once track season started.

Even when Greg Starr injured his wrist earlier this year and couldn’t play basketball, his parents were always there cheering the team on, said Bill Krisinat, sophomore basketball coach.

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“He was the same way,” Krisinat said. “He was always there for his friends.”

This summer, Greg Starr boxed his numerous awards, plaques and trophies and told his father his room needed a “new look.” He decided to paint it royal blue.

“We tried to talk him out of this atrocious blue,” Tom Starr said. “But that’s what he wanted.”

The boy also installed a black light and put stars on the ceiling. In the evenings, eight to 15 friends would cram in the room with the black light on listening to music, including Blind Melon, Bad Religion and Eric Clapton.

One of those friends often was Mike Mize, who turned 16 in February and was looking forward to getting his driver’s license.

“I delayed it a bit so that he could mature a little before he started driving,” his father, Tom Mize said Wednesday. Tuesday’s “would have been his second lesson.”

Marty Morris, who had coached Mize and his older brother in cross-country and track at Fountain Valley, said Mize was a dedicated athlete.

“Cross-country is very rigorous,” Morris said. “And a lot of kids cut workout. But not Mike. He may never have been the star, but you want him on your team because he was a positive influence on the others.”

Mize’s father often volunteered at track meets and made a point to meet all of his sons’ teachers.

“Even when Mike was no longer in your class, he would stop by to say ‘Hi,’ ” Morris said.

Tom Mize, whose wife died of cancer about seven years ago, said Mike had become closer to him and to Mike’s older brother since then.

Mike “was looking forward to his junior year and then perhaps enrolling in a junior college, and then transferring to a state university,” his father said. “He had a gift for talking to people, so he thought about eventually doing something in maybe sales.”

Detectives on Wednesday continued to interview witnesses about the crash.

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“At his point, we’re trying to piece things together, gathering the physical evidence, information from interviews with witnesses and from the scene itself,” Sgt. Dann Bean said. “Then we’ll probably send it to the DA and let them decide what charges” should be filed, if any.

Candace Starr said that just after 1 p.m. Tuesday, a friend of her son drove by the house and told her that there had been an accident.

“I couldn’t track him down,” she said of Greg. “I kept calling all the hospitals and the police. Finally at about 3:30, the coroner’s office called and said they were sending a representative over. That’s when I knew.

“I had heard the sirens.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Collision Course

Police say the driver of the Mustang involved in an accident that killed two Fountain Valley High School students Tuesday was traveling at least 70 m.p.h. in a 40 m.p.h. zone. Here’s how police think the accident occurred:

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1. Speeding red Mustang driven by Brian Tuseth approaches intersection.

2. Mustang hits Nissan Sentra driven by Adelle Park as she attempts to make left turn.

3. Crash sends Mustang out of control and into tree.

4. Mustang smashes five-foot section out of block wall, rolls and comes to rest against utility pole.

Source: Fountain Valley Police Department