Probe Seeks to Find if Car in Crash Was Chased Earlier

Authorities were still trying to determine Saturday if a stolen car that traveled in the wrong direction on the 605 Freeway in the City of Industry, causing a crash that killed two people and injured two others Friday, had been the object of a brief police chase shortly before the collision.

“There is no way at this point that we can confirm that they are one and the same vehicle,” said Baldwin Park Police Lt. Bob Curtis.

“However, we’re going to continue our efforts in an attempt to make some sort of determination.”

Before the freeway collision, a Baldwin Park police officer attempted to stop a small, white foreign-made car that had been driving erratically on a two-lane residential street, Curtis said.

The officer had observed the driver running traffic lights and stop signs and traveling 60 mph in a 20-mph zone.

On Bess Avenue near Leorita Street in Baldwin Park, the officer pulled behind the car, but the driver fled.

“This guy just jumped into the opposing lanes of traffic and took off,” Curtis said. The officer followed the car for six-tenths of a mile.

“Ours was a very short effort,” Curtis said. “When it becomes that level of dangerous, the officers will, more times than not, discontinue the pursuit.”

The officer was unable to note a license plate number, Curtis said.

The car involved in the freeway crash, a white Honda Prelude, had been reported stolen Aug. 13 from Baldwin Park.

The driver turned south Friday onto the northbound 605 at Valley Boulevard, California Highway Patrol officers said.

The Honda traveled down the freeway at 70 mph in the slow lane, then glanced off a Chevrolet pickup and crashed into a guardrail before careening back into traffic and colliding with a station wagon.

The 32-year-old driver of the Honda underwent surgery and remains in a coma, said CHP Sgt. Vince Lee.

Officers have not yet determined his identity. The man was not carrying identification at the time of the accident, and the one surviving passenger says she does not know him, according to Lee.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office identified the two passengers killed in the collision as Lorraine Rodriguez, 30, of Rialto and Katherine Loera, 25.

The women were in the back seat when the crash occurred.

A third passenger, Darlene Delfin, 23, of Rialto, who is four months pregnant, remained hospitalized at County-USC Medical Center, Lee said.

Delfin told authorities that she was visiting friends “and [the driver] came by and picked them up.

“She claims that he was a friend of one of the deceased and that she didn’t personally know his name,” Lee said.

The driver of the station wagon suffered facial injuries.

The collision was the second wrong-direction fatal accident on a Southland freeway in a week.