Tragic End to Weekend Trip

A flat tire seemed the only glitch to a perfect weekend for Lauren Dunn, Lauren Interess and Jody Wilson, who were returning from a Santa Catalina Island scuba-diving trip.

No matter, thought the three science camp instructors, whom family and friends described as driven, independent young women. Opting to replace the tire themselves, the 23-year-olds coaxed Dunn’s green Plymouth Voyager over to the median strip of the northbound Long Beach Freeway near Anaheim Street Sunday night and climbed out.

Moments later, Wilson and Interess were dead, struck by a black Camaro, authorities said. Dunn, who was also hit, died at St. Mary Medical Center a few hours later.

The driver of the Camaro that careened into them, Ricardo Zamora, 20, of Torrance, was booked on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, said Officer Nancy Tabing of the Long Beach Police Department. He was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail and was scheduled to be arraigned this morning in Long Beach Municipal Court.

How fast Zamora was going is still under investigation, Tabing said. No alcohol or drugs appear to be involved.

Dunn, Interess and Wilson lived and taught at Astrocamp at the Desert Sun Science Center in Idyllwild. The camp, operated by Guided Discoveries, a nonprofit education organization, caters to about 15,000 students each year who come for a multiple-night stay to learn about astronomy and other physical sciences, said the center’s director, David Goodsell.

Friends and families said the women loved to be outdoors. Of the three, Wilson was the newest to the area, having arrived in early September from the University of New Hampshire, where she had completed a graduate course in teaching.

She had a bachelor’s degree in physics from Wesleyan University and spent a year in Connecticut, working for the U.S. Geological Survey, but decided she wanted to teach, said her stepfather, Kenzie Lobacz of New London, N.H. She heard about Astrocamp from one of her friends.

“She was loving it,” Lobacz said of his stepdaughter. “She was helping kids, that’s always what she wanted to do. She helped everybody.”

Interess, too, loved working with the children at camp, said her father, Ed Interess of Winchester, Mass.

“I think it was becoming her ambition to become a teacher permanently,” he said of his daughter, who had weeks earlier fulfilled her dream of driving cross country.

“She was a self-starter,” he said. “She knew what she wanted to do and she always did it.”

The older of two children, Interess had graduated on the dean’s list from Williams College in Massachusetts with a bachelor’s degree in geo-sciences in 1998.

Her special love was astronomy, Goodsell added, and she was well versed in using computer-directed telescopes.

Lauren Dunn of Erie, Pa., had just transferred to Idyllwild from Guided Discoveries’ Catalina Island facility, Goodsell said. The Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate had a degree in biology, and loved traveling and working with children, Goodsell said. She was the younger of two children, her Erie, Pa. neighbors said.

This weekend’s classes at the Idyllwild camp have been postponed so that the staff can have time to grieve, he said.

“We work together and play together. We become very close. This is a terrible shock to all of us.”

A Guided Discoveries Memorial Fund has been established in Dunn’s and Interess’ names. Donations may be sent to P.O. Box 1360 Claremont, CA 91711. A separate memorial fund is being established for Wilson by her parents.