Police arrest suspect in Halloween hit-and-run deaths of 3 girls

A 31-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run driving in connection with a Halloween accident in Santa Ana, Calif. that left three girls dead.

Police said they initially detained two adults and two children in connection with the incident, but they subsequently released everyone but the suspected driver, identified as Jaquinn Bell.

Bell was arrested midday Sunday outside a Motel 6, Santa Ana police said.

Police said began their search for the driver and another person after twin sisters Lexia and Lexandra Perez and their friend, Andrea Gonzales, were struck crossing the road while trick-or-treating Friday at about 6:45 p.m.

Investigators said they later found the suspected car, a Honda CR-V, abandoned in the parking lot of a nearby Big Lots store. Police said the driver and passenger had fled.

Police announced late Sunday morning that they had made several arrests in the case, but declined to release the names of the suspects or details of the case.

Andrea’s brother, Josafat Gonzalez, 21, said of the arrests: “It won’t bring my sister back, but the people who committed such a terrible crime will get their time in court and justice will be served.”

Early Monday at Fairhaven Elementary School, near where the incident occurred, the street corner was covered in bouquets of flowers, candles and a plastic Halloween candy bowl containing lighters to help keep the candles burning.

Some came to pay their respects, one person making the sign of the cross over his body. The city manager of Santa Ana and other city employees stopped at the makeshift memorial.

Half-brothers Shane Chesser and Wayne Flynn looked on from the frontyard of their house down the street.

They said they hadn’t been sleeping well since the incident, they said, and the bowl of Kit Kats, Snickers and other Halloween treats they’d planned to hand out was still full. The trick-or-treaters had stopped arriving after the incident, they said, and then they took down the fake gravesite decorations from in front of their home.

“All Halloweens will be different, that’s for sure,” said Flynn, 31.

Los Angeles Times