3 Children Killed as Family Vehicle Rams Truck

Three children were killed Monday when their mother’s sport utility vehicle struck the rear of a parked truck in Malibu.

The mother and her other child were seriously injured, said Sgt. Kevin Mauch of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Maria Guerrero’s Isuzu Rodeo slammed into the semitrailer attached to the truck west of Carbon Canyon on Pacific Coast Highway shortly after 6 a.m., Mauch said. The family was returning to Oxnard from a trip to Rosarito Beach in Mexico, he said.

Sheriff’s investigators were looking for a red car that may have hit the Isuzu first and contributed to the accident. They found red paint on the Isuzu, Mauch said, and when they interviewed a distraught Guerrero at UCLA Medical Center, she told them that “a red car in the lane adjacent” to her had been “behaving peculiarly,” Mauch said.

Although seriously injured, Guerrero was not killed because her vehicle struck the trailer at an angle, Mauch said. The trailer penetrated deeper into the Isuzu on the right side, leading to the deaths of Virginia Alfaro, 13, Alexis Alfaro, 11, and Andrea Alfaro, 12. Mauch said that Luis Alfaro, 9, was in good condition.

The driver of the truck, which was parked on the shoulder of the road, was asleep in the cab and was not injured. Mauch said the driver had been planning to make a delivery to a business later in the morning.