Mystery Magnifies Grief in Family’s Death

The truck had skidded down a snowy embankment from the winding highway above, crashing and tumbling down the cliff before coming to rest on its roof, 300 feet below.

At least one person was still alive in the cold stillness. And the only lifeline in that freezing, isolated ravine was the family’s cellular telephone.

Five calls went out from the icy forest, relatives said. Two were unsuccessful attempts to reach relatives. Two more were to directory assistance.

The final number dialed was 911.

But for reasons still unknown, that call also failed to bring help. And by then, it may have been too late.

When the Lechuga family failed to return to their Highland Park home after spending Thanksgiving in Victorville, relatives knew something was wrong.

They began searching everywhere--the desert roads of the Mojave, the hills north of Los Angeles--dogged by a single question: How could an entire family disappear?

Jose Lechuga’s brothers and sisters made fliers with pictures of the family, plastered them on the backs of their cars and handed them out as they drove around Southern California. During the last week, about 100 family members piled into 15 cars to scour the route from Victorville to Los Angeles.

Their agonizing search turned into a frantic, frustrating endeavor with a few tantalizing clues. A hotel owner said he saw the missing family at a gas station in the town of Mojave. As one of their last acts, the Lechugas helped a Victorville family fix a flat tire on Angeles Crest Highway the day after Thanksgiving.

The failed phone calls, the most haunting clues of all, surfaced last Friday. Relatives said Victorville police investigators had tracked five calls made on Dolores Lechuga’s cellular phone the afternoon of Nov. 29, the day after the family disappeared.

Although relatives said they had been shown the telephone records, Victorville police would not comment on the calls.

And the family is left with questions swirling about the tragedy, wondering why the calls were not successful.

Their worst fears were confirmed Tuesday afternoon. A sheriff’s search and rescue team saw Jose Lechuga’s blue truck at the bottom of the ravine in Angeles National Forest, battered after its slide down the cliff.

The bodies of his sons, Joseph, 6, and Jeremy, 4, were found in the cab. The remains of Jose, 34, were beneath the bed of the truck. A set of footprints led away to the body of his wife, Dolores, 44, crumpled on the steep snow-covered ground 150 feet away.

California Highway Patrol officials, who are investigating the accident, said it is unclear why the truck went off the curving road, a treacherous stretch of highway that is often closed in winter.

The tightknit clan that immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, gathered Wednesday in Highland Park to mourn the wrenching end to their search.

“They were so close, so loving, that I guess that’s why they were taken together,” sobbed Alma Lechuga, 38, Jose’s sister-in-law. “They could never be apart.”

Jose and Dolores, who met at a neighbor’s party in Highland Park, had been married 13 years and lived in a small house a few blocks from other family members. The youngest son of eight children, Jose had immigrated to the United States in 1977. His wife was born and raised in Highland Park.

Jose, a carpet installer, and Dolores, a homemaker, adored their two sons, whom relatives remembered as talkative and loving. The family would often take outings in Jose’s motorboat and go camping in the mountains.

Joseph, a precocious kindergartner at Yorkdale Elementary School, wanted to be in television commercials. Jeremy wanted to do everything his older brother did.

The two boys often performed for the family. Joseph would dance to the song “Stayin’ Alive” and pretend to play the guitar while his younger brother would eagerly imitate him.

“Can you believe it?” cried Hortensia Quiroz, Jose’s sister. “Those sweet, loving boys are gone.”

The family’s Thanksgiving at the house of Jose’s sister Ermilla in Victorville was an especially festive one. There was a birthday celebration for Jeremy, who had just turned 4 several days earlier. Jose called Mexico to talk to his father, whom he had not seen in 17 years, and decided he wanted to visit him.

The Lechugas headed back to Los Angeles about 4 p.m. Nov. 28, the day after Thanksgiving. Instead of taking their usual route down Interstate 15 into the basin, they headed across the winding Angeles Crest Highway that cuts through the San Gabriel Mountains. “He had never driven that road before,” Quiroz said. “I can only think that they wanted to show the kids the snow.”

At 5:30 p.m., the Lechugas stopped on the highway to help a Victorville family with a flat tire, relatives discovered later.

That was the last time they were seen.

When Jose didn’t show up for work Saturday, his brother and co-worker Manuel Lechuga became worried and alerted relatives. They began frantically calling others in the extended family in Arizona, the Napa Valley and Mexico, daring to believe that the family had perhaps taken a trip without telling anyone.

“We just kept hoping they would show up,” Quiroz said. “I can’t believe they’re gone. They were a part of us. We are just left with so many memories.”

In the midst of their grief, family members said they are angry that the Los Angeles Police Department ignored their initial pleas for help when the Lechugas did not arrive home.

Relatives said that they tried to report the family’s disappearance Dec. 4 but that an LAPD officer refused to take a report and told them to inform authorities in Victorville. The case was transferred Monday to the department’s missing persons unit.

“We’re angry because they didn’t help us,” said Edgar Lechuga, 18, a cousin. “If they started looking earlier, maybe they would have been saved.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks has ordered an internal investigation into the family’s complaint, said department spokesman Lt. Anthony Alba.

Relatives now say they wish they had known where to look.

“I just wish they could have known how hard we tried to find them,” said Edgar Lechuga. “I wish they could have seen how far we went to bring them back.”