Victims’ Mother Weeps and Prays at Crash Site

As soon as she arrived from Mexico, Rosamaria Quinonez wanted to see the strip of Anaheim asphalt where her two daughters died a day earlier in a tangle of metal and glass. So, before dawn on Christmas Day, her shivering and weeping relatives took her to visit the site of her heartache.

“We prayed and cried,” a relative said of the impromptu vigil. “It was very emotional and hard.”

Christmas was a day of crying for the entire Quinonez family as wave after wave of visitors and callers reached out to stem their grief and share their loss. Lizett and Claudia Quinonez were killed early Tuesday when a stolen car being chased by Cypress police smashed into the side of the sisters’ car.

Police said Wednesday that their investigation is continuing. One of the three people in the fleeing car, Abraham Camarena, 14, of Cerritos, died Tuesday afternoon of injuries.

The other two occupants of the car, driver Oscar Rodriguez, 18, of Buena Park, and an unidentified 16-year-old girl, were hospitalized with serious injuries. Rodriguez will face vehicular manslaughter charges, police said.

The Quinonez sisters were returning home from a fast-food restaurant when the fleeing car, traveling in excess of 80 mph, ran a red light and struck their 1980 Honda Civic at Orange and Knott avenues, police said. The sisters were killed instantly.

Lizett, a 22-year-old nursing aide, was three months pregnant. Claudia, 16, was visiting from Mexico.

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On Wednesday, siblings, cousins and friends crowded Lizett’s modest Cerritos Avenue apartment. Photos of the sisters were hung on the wall and stacked on a photo album near a Christmas tree in the corner.

Instead of opening gifts and laughing, the family huddled around Rosamaria Quinonez, 45, whose eyes were red with grief and exhaustion. The mother flew from her home in Guadalajara to Tijuana in the hours after she got the news on Tuesday, and a nephew drove her north to Orange County early Wednesday. Her husband, Jose Manuel Quinonez, remained in Mexico to arrange the funeral.

The crash site was marked when Rosamaria Quinonez arrived. Friends and family--along with strangers touched by the holiday tragedy--had left behind flowers, candles and notes at the spot where the mangled wreckage had sat a day earlier.

After the pilgrimage to the crash site, Rosamaria Quinonez repeatedly insisted on going to the coroner’s office to see her daughters’ bodies.

“She wants to be with her daughters. She wants to see them,” said her niece, Ada Gonzalez, 25, of Glendale. “It’s kind of difficult. She doesn’t know the extent of the damage. It was a bad accident.”

Rosamaria Quinonez, who does not speak English, said through her niece that her grief is eased by her faith. Lizett and Claudia “are with God, and they are together,” she said.

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Family members thanked well-wishers for their calls, notes and donations. The Quinonez family plans to use the donations to have the sisters’ bodies sent to Mexico for burial.

“I’m hoping to God that we will be able to do that, but I don’t know,” Ada Gonzalez said, citing financial problems. Her brother, Marco Gonzalez of Oxnard, said the family hoped to set up a trust fund today at Home Savings of America on Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim.

He said anyone wishing to help can call (714) 229-8434 for more information.

Ada Gonzalez also said the crush of public support and grief had prompted the family to consider a local viewing period. The Daly & Bartell Mortuary of Anaheim has offered to arrange a Rosary service for no charge, but the family was unsure Wednesday when that would take place.

“People have been asking us, so we may do that if we can,” Marco Gonzalez said. “There have been more than a dozen calls today, people who want to tell us how sad they feel. We want to thank everyone.”