Traffic Accidents Claim 4 More Lives

As a second Tujunga teen died from injuries suffered in a weekend traffic accident that killed his former classmate, officials at the Burbank high school they attended prepared to break the news to students this morning.

Elsewhere around the Valley Sunday, three other people died in unrelated traffic accidents.

The Tujunga teens--both wearing seat belts--were traveling in a Lexus sedan that struck a tree off La Tuna Canyon Road near Verdugo Hills Golf Course about 6:15 a.m. Saturday. A California Highway Patrol officer said speeding was a likely cause.

The driver, who died at the scene, was identified by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office as Ricardo Antonio Ojeda, 16, of Tujunga. His passenger, 16-year-old Gino Nepomuceno of Tujunga, died Sunday morning at a Mission Hills hospital.

Reece Talley, a history teacher at Providence High School in Burbank, said Ricardo and Gino were popular students. Gino was a junior at the prestigious private Catholic school and Ricardo had transferred to another school last year after two years at Providence, he said.

Ricardo’s brother, Aurelio, said he and other family members were grieving Sunday. They knew little about the accident, he said, except that the car left the road.

Providence’s principal, Sister Lucille Dean, said faculty and members of the Providence ministry would be on hand this morning to help students cope with the loss, the first student deaths in her 16 years as head of the school, she said.

Gary Turner, principal at Verdugo Hills High School in Tujunga, said he feels a bond with the mourning students and faculty at Providence. A collision on the Angeles Crest Highway in April 1999 claimed the lives of five Verdugo Hills students, Turner said.

“It’s always so tragic,” Turner said. “As a member of the Angeles Crest Safety Committee, I have been trying to get people to slow down in those dangerous canyons.”

In an unrelated accident, 21-year-old Gerald Matic of Los Angeles died after his 1996 Chrysler Sebring sideswiped another car, hit an embankment, and rolled over as it was exiting the Glendale Freeway at York Boulevard about 1:50 a.m. Sunday, police said.

Matic, who had not been wearing his seat belt, was ejected from his car and died at the scene, said Officer Frank Sansone, a spokesman for the CHP. The driver and the passenger of the other car, a 1995 Honda Accord, both wore seat belts and were uninjured, Sansone said.

A few hours later, about 4:30 a.m., an unidentified motorist westbound on the Ventura Freeway near De Soto Avenue in Woodland Hills drifted off the embankment and crashed into a tree, Sansone said. The car burst into flames, and medical examiners have not yet been able to identify the man’s remains.

And, at 11:30 a.m., a 1989 Dodge Aries driven by 89-year-old Grace Migliozzi ran a red light as it headed north on Whitsett Avenue at Oxnard Street, said Sgt. Bill Justice of LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division. Migliozzi’s car was hit by a 1992 Nissan Pathfinder before it crashed into a 1997 Toyota Camry.

Though Migliozzi had been wearing her seat belt, she suffered major injuries and died later at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, Justice said. People in the other cars were not injured.