Crash’s Lasting Effects

Police said they plan to seek three homicide charges today against 18-year-old Oscar Rodriguez, the Buena Park driver accused of slamming into another vehicle during a police chase, killing two sisters in the second car as well as one of his own passengers.

The high-speed chase ended tragically early Tuesday, police said, when Rodriguez ran a red light at Orange and Knott avenues in Anaheim and broadsided a Honda at 80 mph, instantly killing Lizett Quinonez, 22, and her sister Claudia, 16.

One of Rodriguez’s two passengers in the fleeing car--16-year-old Abraham Camarena of Cerritos--died of his injuries later in the day.

“We’re seeking three counts of homicide and maybe other charges,” Anaheim Lt. John Haradon said Thursday.

Police plan to refer the case today to the district attorney’s office, which will make the final decision on what charges to seek. Rodriguez, arrested at the scene of the crash, is expected to be arraigned Monday in Municipal Court in Fullerton, Haradon said.

The sisters were mourned Thursday by dozens of grieving relatives and friends at a visitation and memorial rosary service held at a local mortuary. On Saturday, their bodies will be flown to Guadalajara, Mexico, where they will be buried.

Lizett Quinonez, a nursing aid, was three months pregnant and engaged to be married. Claudia Quinonez was visiting from Guadalajara, where the parents of the nine surviving Quinonez siblings live.

Pierce Brothers Daly Bartel Spencer Mortuary in Anaheim, where the service was held, was flooded Thursday with calls and offers of help from strangers touched by the Christmas Eve accident and the Quinonez family’s struggle to raise funds to fly the sisters’ bodies to Mexico.

The mortuary had already offered to arrange the rosary service for no charge and donated the coffins that the sisters will be buried in.

“It’s such a tragic thing that we wanted to help,” said Christopher L. Cano, manager of the mortuary. “Our hearts really went out to this family and we wanted to do what we could.”

The expense of transporting the bodies back to Mexico will be paid for by an individual who wanted to remain anonymous.

“There have been a lot of people calling, wanting to contribute,” Cano said. “One family offered to pay for the whole thing, but I don’t think they want anyone to know who they are.”

At the service, tearful mourners streamed past the sisters’ copper-colored steel coffins, which were left open for the viewing. Some stood in front of the coffins for several minutes, crying and shaking with grief. Others wept silently in their seats.

The sisters were dressed in white coats and had rosaries placed in their hands. Photographs of each were hung on their caskets. The emotional three-hour viewing was followed by a rosary service.

Rosamaria Quinonez, the mother of the sisters, sat in the front row of the chapel, grief etched on her face. She was surrounded by some of her surviving children, all of whom were consoled by weeping relatives and friends.

The mother arrived from Mexico on Christmas Day and, before dawn, visited the location where her daughters were killed. Her husband, Jose Manuel Quinonez, remained in Mexico to arrange the funeral.

Also sitting in the front row of the chapel was 26-year-old Mario Zavala, Lizett Quinonez’s fiance and the father of her unborn child. The couple had planned to be married in Mexico after the child’s birth.

The family’s grief was mixed with anger over the accident.

When Marco Gonzalez of Oxnard, the sisters’ cousin, learned before the service that police plan to seek homicide charges against the driver, rather than a lesser charge of vehicular manslaughter, Gonzalez said, “Good.”

The 2:20 a.m. crash raised to eight the number of people killed in the wake of police pursuits in Orange County over the last year.

Last New Year’s Eve, boxer Ernie Magdaleno was killed when a suspect fleeing Fountain Valley police crashed into his Jeep Cherokee at 85 mph. Ironically, one of Lizett and Claudia Quinonez’s brothers is also a boxer and knew Magdaleno, a family friend said Thursday.

Tuesday’s tragedy unfolded when a Cypress police officer stopped a Ford Escort that Rodriguez was driving about 2:15 a.m. because he appeared to be “driving erratically.” When the officer activated his blinking red lights, Rodriguez first hesitated, then stopped near Orange Avenue and Valley View Street, police said.

When the officer got out of the car, Rodriguez sped off, prompting the pursuit. A few seconds into the chase, one of the passengers tossed a loaded handgun from the window, police said.

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The chase covered only three-quarters of a mile and lasted less than a minute before the suspect’s car crashed into that of the Quinonez sisters. It was later determined that the fleeing vehicle had been reported stolen.

Cypress police are reviewing the officer’s actions to make sure that he complied with department policies.

Anaheim investigators defended the officer, saying the chase was so brief he had no chance to make the call on whether to drop back. “By the time it was over, the officer was just getting buckled in,” Haradon said.

If the chase had continued, the officer would have determined whether to pull back based on the nature of the offense, the density of traffic and other factors, Haradon said.

Meanwhile, an investigation is continuing by both Anaheim and Cypress police departments into what the trio in the fleeing car was doing or planning to do before the pursuit.

Rodriguez, Camarena and an unidentified 16-year-old girl who remains hospitalized were traveling in a stolen car and were in possession of a loaded gun, police said. Whether they had committed any other crime remains unclear, Haradon said.

“We’re interviewing people to see what they might have been up to before, or what they might have been planning after,” he said.

Police had earlier believed that Camarena was 14 years old, but coroner’s investigators said Thursday that he was 16.

The Times was unable to reach the Camarena family, and funeral arrangements for the Cerritos teen were unknown Thursday.

Anyone wishing to contribute money to the Quinonez family may send donations to St. Boniface Catholic Church, 120 N. Janss St., Anaheim, CA 92805. Church officials ask that donors write “Quinonez” on the outside of the envelope so that contributions are properly routed.