Nidia, 6, Was ‘the Light of Our Lives’

More than 100 people gathered in a Santa Ana church Tuesday to bid farewell to Nidia “Liz” Curiel, 6, one of two girls killed a week ago when a car jumped a curb and plowed into them in front of an Anaheim school.

“She was the light of our lives, to her uncles, to her grandparents, to her cousins,” Nidia’s father, Armando Curiel, 27, said after the funeral services. “We will always remember her.”

But even as they mourned Nidia’s death, Curiel, his family and friends also raised questions about the pace of the investigation into the actions of Maria Martinez Juarez, the 50-year-old Anaheim woman whose car struck first-grader Nidia and second-grader Bianca Perez, 7, at Centralia Elementary School on March 12.

“Even if you kill an animal, there is a penalty,” said Nidia’s grandfather, also named Armando Curiel, who came from Mexico for his eldest grandchild’s funeral. “[Juarez] is walking free like nothing happened.”

Anaheim police Tuesday ruled out mechanical failure as a cause of the accident.

Juarez has not been charged, and accident investigators will forward their findings to the city attorney’s office this week, police said. Preliminary reports said Juarez may have accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brakes.

Tuesday at La Iglesia de La Luz del Mundo, a Spanish-speaking congregation to which the Curiels belong, relatives and friends packed the church and remembered a happy, studious girl who died three months short of her seventh birthday.

Nidia’s body lay in a small casket. She was dressed in a white dress and purple shawl. A teddy bear rested at her side.

Her mother, Sua Lugo, 24, sobbed uncontrollably and was comforted several times by her mother, Silvia, and other relatives.

Later at Santa Ana Cemetery, the girl’s father clung to his crying wife, rubbing his cheeks against her forehead and whispering soothing words.

At times, Nidia’s 3-year-old brother, Samir, could be heard crying in the arms of an uncle. The boy and his mother witnessed the accident from just a few paces from where Nidia was hit.

“I can’t imagine the pain,” said Maria Gonzalez, 34, who also has children at Centralia.

“I hurt when I see my daughter cry. I can’t imagine what she is going through.”

Gonzalez and other parents of Centralia students said they fear for their children’s safety because of traffic and confusion over the school’s combination driveway-parking lot.

But Centralia’s principal, Cindy Chaffee, maintained that the school is safe.

“It was a freak accident,” she said. “Even in the safest school, there isn’t anything that can be done about an out-of-control driver.”