Funeral services today for three teens killed in Halloween hit-and-run

Funerals for three 13-year-old girls who were killed by a hit-and-run driver while trick-or-treating on Halloween night are scheduled for early Saturday.

Hundreds gathered for an 8:30 a.m. service for twin sisters Lexi and Lexandra Perez at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Ana. Members of the family and many of the mourners were dressed in white for the Spanish-language Mass.

A 9:30 a.m. service for Andrea Gonzalez was scheduled to be held at Holy Family Cathedral in Orange.

The three girls were struck about 6:45 p.m. Oct. 31 by a driver “going at a high rate of speed” while they were in a crosswalk in the area of Old Grand Street and Fairhaven Avenue, police said.

All were declared dead at the scene.

“The girls had just started trick-or-treating when they got hit,” Arlette Huerta, the twins’ aunt, said at the time.

Jaquinn Bell, 31, who allegedly fled the scene, was arrested two days later in connection with the incident, authorities said. He was convicted of hit-and-run and drunk driving just two months previously was behind the wheel even though his license had been suspended, court records show.

In both cases, police say, Bell was driving with his own children, ages 14 and 17, in the car.

Police said Bell never hit the brakes after slamming into the girls and before abandoning the Honda SUV in a nearby retail parking lot and running off with his children.

Authorities are trying to determine whether he was intoxicated at the time of the crash. Bell is being held on $500,000 bail and is expected to be formally charged with felony hit-and-run driving.

Bell’s criminal record dates to 2009 when he was placed on probation after pleading guilty in a domestic violence case. Since then, according to court records, he has violated probation seven times and has usually been punished with short jail sentences and orders to attend substance abuse and child endangerment treatment programs.