Driver Shoots Self to Death After Fatal Truck Crash

A Bakersfield man apparently committed suicide after the truck he was driving careened over a 50-foot cliff on California 33, killing his girlfriend and another woman and critically injuring that woman’s husband, Ventura County sheriff’s investigators said Sunday.

And in an unrelated traffic collision, an 11-year old Santa Barbara girl was critically injured when two vehicles collided head-on at Valentine Road and Knoll Drive just after 12:30 p.m. Sunday in Ventura. The crash, on a road that parallels the Ventura Freeway, delayed highway traffic in both directions as motorists slowed to observe the wreckage.

In the earlier fatal accident, Gary Sears was at the wheel of a 1999 Chevrolet truck traveling northbound on California 33 shortly before 9 p.m. Saturday. Ventura County Sheriff’s investigators said the truck drifted onto the east shoulder and then swerved off the west side of the road. The truck plummeted about 50 feet, landing in a dry riverbed two miles south of the Santa Barbara County line, according to a spokesman for the county medical examiner’s office.

Killed in the accident were Debra Lynch, 37, who investigators believe was Sears’ girlfriend, and Judy Villegas, 26, both of Bakersfield.

Villegas’ husband, Chauki, also of Bakersfield, was airlifted to Ventura County Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition.

Chauki Villegas, 26, is the only passenger known to have been wearing a seat belt, said James Baroni, a senior investigator with the coroner’s office.

Several beer containers littered the scene, officials said, causing officials to suspect alcohol was involved, but blood tests will reveal whether the vehicle’s occupants had been drinking, Baroni said.

Sears, 37, managed to pry himself from the wreckage and wander up to the road, where a passerby spotted him, bloody and carrying a handgun, officials said.

When Sears was approached later by an off-duty Forest Service ranger, he held the gun to his head and told the ranger to get away, officials said. The ranger left the scene to seek assistance, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies later found Sears dead near the wreckage, with a single .380-caliber bullet wound to the head. Sears and the two women were pronounced dead at 10:05 p.m., Baroni said.

Baroni speculated that “the totally unexpected chaos just overtook” Sears and that he became distraught over the apparent deaths of his girlfriend and companions. Chauki Villegas was unconscious after the crash. The two women died on impact, said Sgt. Larry Meyers of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“He [believed] he killed three of his good friends and thought, ‘I should be dead with them,’ ” Baroni said. “I just think he couldn’t deal with it for whatever reason and took his own life.”

In Sunday’s Ventura accident, Teri Bell, 29, of Santa Barbara was driving westbound on Valentine Road with her 11- and 2-year-old daughters when she crossed a center line, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with an eastbound pickup, Ventura police said. A second eastbound car, driven by Manuel Guzman of Oxnard, slammed into Bell’s vehicle head-on, police said.

Guzman was driving with his wife, Norma, and their four children, who range in age from 1 to 7.

Bell’s daughter, Laylah Seeman-Bell, 11, was most seriously injured. She sustained major head trauma and internal injuries and was admitted in critical condition to Ventura County Medical Center, where she underwent emergency surgery. She was still listed in critical condition Sunday night. Bell’s other daughter, Nedia, sustained minor injuries from being jarred in her child safety seat.

Guadalupe Guzman, 7, sustained a broken leg and minor injuries. All victims were taken to Ventura County Medical Center. Those who sustained minor injuries were treated and released. Teri Bell was listed in fair condition and was still being observed Sunday night.

Police are still investigating the cause of the crash.

Before the fatal accident in northwestern Ventura County, the two Bakersfield couples had been shooting guns in a rural chaparral-dusted portion of Ventura County, Baroni said. But he didn’t know whether they were headed back to Bakersfield when the accident happened.

“They had all sorts of guns and ammunition,” he said. “I don’t know if they were target practicing or shooting or what,” Baroni said.

According to one of Sears’ friends, the man’s apparent suicide is a shock.

“I talked to a friend of [Sears] who said this is totally unexpected,” Baroni said. “He wasn’t suicidal.”

Authorities said friends and family of the victims were on their way to Ventura County Medical Center to be near Villegas and could not be reached for comment Sunday evening.