2 Buena Park Boys Who Died in Fiery Crash Are Buried

Their parents still hospitalized in critical condition, two young half-brothers were buried a week after their car burst into flames following a traffic accident in Tustin.

Jerrod Damon Perry Howard, 4 months old, and David Alexander Loera Howard, 4 years old, died in the back seat of their family’s 1988 Mazda. Their parents, Perry Howard, 32, and Angela Howard, 24, escaped from the car but remain at UCI Medical Center in Orange with extensive burns.

Police have not been able to interview the parents in detail.

The Howards, from Buena Park, were going to visit Perry Howard’s parents when the accident occurred. Their car was stopped or slowing to turn left from Prospect Avenue to Theodora Drive when it was hit by a Lincoln Mark VIII. The impact ignited a fire and pushed the Mazda into oncoming traffic, where it collided with another car.

Police on Wednesday released the name of the Lincoln’s driver, Timothy E. Albright, 43, of Santa Ana. He has not been charged, and investigators still are trying to figure out what caused the fire. There is no indication Albright was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Lt. Joe Garcia said, but police are awaiting results of blood tests.

Albright could not be reached. His record with the state Department of Motor Vehicles showed only a traffic ticket last September for a stop sign violation.

A Mass of Christian burial was held for the brothers at St. Irenaeus Catholic Church in Cypress, followed by burial at Westminster Memorial Park. The Tustin Police Department and its chaplains will hold a vigil at 7 p.m. today at Prospect Avenue and Beneta Way, a block south of the accident site. Flowers and teddy bears that people continue to bring mark the corner where the accident occurred.

The memorial service is part of a 2- to 3-year-old program the department borrowed from police in Indianapolis to give closure to the community after traumatic events.

In any event like this, there are many “secondary victims,” said Lt. Mike Shanahan, including people who saw the accident and its aftermath and who read about it but didn’t know the family well enough to go to the memorial service. “We found a lot of people needed something,” he said.