Suicide Plunge From Overpass Kills Driver on Freeway

A man who allegedly killed his wife Friday afternoon fell to his death from a Century Freeway connector a short time later and crashed through the roof of a car 80 feet below, killing the driver and injuring a passenger.

At 2:30 p.m., Osmin Ernesto Bonilla, 28, pulled his Ford Explorer onto the shoulder of the westbound Century Freeway connector to the Harbor Freeway, shot himself and plunged onto a Toyota Camry traveling south on the Harbor Freeway, police said. His body ripped through the car’s roof.

The vehicle traveled about half a mile before stopping just south of El Segundo Boulevard.

The driver, Sandra Dwyer, 32, died at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Her passenger, Terry Gray, in his mid-30s, was hurt but later released from Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, said Jim Wells, a city fire spokesman.

Dwyer, who was going about 65 mph according to police, probably did not have time to react because Bonilla’s fall took just slightly more than a second. His body reached about 50 mph before impact.

About half an hour before Bonilla shot himself, he had shot and killed his 27-year-old wife, Alejandra Hernandez, in a home’s driveway in the 600 block of West 45th Street in South-Central Los Angeles, police said. The couple were estranged. He had fled by the time police arrived.

Neighbors huddled on the block in the afternoon and throughout the evening as police spoke to witnesses and residents of the home.

Raul Figueroa, 48, who lives across the street and one door down from where the shooting occurred, said he was watching television when he heard two gunshots.

“Then I heard four more in a row. When I went out, I saw a green car leave and the woman was on the floor in front of the home,” Figueroa said.

Another neighbor who lives across the street said she heard a woman screaming, “No, no,” before the burst of gunfire.

Aracely Mendoza, who was visiting a family on the block, said the woman killed was believed to be delivering a gift at the home when Bonilla confronted her and shot her, she said.

Bonilla jumped near the same site where, in 1998, a 40-year-old Long Beach man killed himself on live television.

Daniel V. Jones, a maintenance worker at a Long Beach motel, parked his truck shortly after 3 p.m. on the connector loop from the Harbor Freeway to the Century Freeway. He called 911, reached the California Highway Patrol and rambled on about HMOs. He then walked onto the empty freeway and unfurled a banner that read “HMOS are in it for the money!! Live free, love safe or die.” He then returned to his truck.

Suddenly, the truck burst into flames, with his dog inside. Jones fled the truck with his hair and clothing on fire.

As news helicopters swarmed overhead, he returned to the truck, grabbed his shotgun, placed it under his chin and pulled the trigger.

That incident prompted debate over the ethics of broadcasting unfolding events live.