Fresno driver accused of causing fatal crash, eluding police, will go to trial
A Fresno driver, accused of crashing into another vehicle and killing a 55-year-old Fresno woman, will go to trial, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Ruby Garcia, 29, is charged with four felonies, including gross vehicular manslaughter, driving under the influence and evading police.
Police said the fatal crash happened Feb. 27 after they tried to pull Garcia over to question her about the 2003 gray Nissan she was driving. The car matched the description of a vehicle used during a Feb. 19 armed robbery.
But when police, some in unmarked cars, tried to pull Garcia over, she sped away traveling south on Fresno Street, near Dakota Avenue.
Fresno Police Sgt. Ray Villavazo, whose team of detectives were looking for the vehicle, testified Garcia began to pull away from the marked patrol car that was following her.
“She ran the red light at Shields and then shortly after that I heard a crash,” Villavazo said.
Garcia, who was traveling 50 to 60 mph, slammed into a Hyundai driven by Stephanie Lucio, who was driving her uncle, her 6-year-old son and her mother, Debbie Criado.
The family was in a good mood, having just eaten dinner at Bobby Salazar’s on Blackstone and Princeton avenues. Their uncle was visiting from Oklahoma.
Lucio testified she was driving east on Princeton heading home when she started driving through the intersection of Fresno Street and Princeton Avenue. Her uncle was in the passenger seat, her mother in the rear passenger and her son was sitting behind her.
Lucio recalls turning her head slightly to her left, just in time to see Garcia’s car hurtling towards her.
After that, she remembers very little.
“I blacked out, and just remember waking up in the E.R.,” she said. “I had my phone and my daughter called to tell me that my mom didn’t make it.”
Lucio began to cry as she sat on the witness stand. She said her mother died later that day at Community Regional Medical Center. Cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma to her chest, she said.
She told prosecutor Steven Ueltzen she was in the hospital for two weeks, recovering from eight fractured ribs, a broken tailbone, a pelvis fracture and a severe gash to the right side of her face that caused nerve damage. She also had to relearn how to walk.
Her uncle suffered a broken clavicle and her son fractured his back. His recovery required him to miss school for month.
As Lucio described the physical pain her family has had to endure, Garcia began to cry.
Ueltzen said Garcia was high on methamphetamine that night and could face up to 21 years and eight months in prison.
