Erica Lopez is willing to do anything to help her 1-year-old daughter, Estrellita, learn about her father.
She places the little girl in front of framed photographs of her husband on the bedroom wall in their Anaheim apartment, and points to the man who loved her mother so much that he came to visit her almost every day after work. Used to bring a red rose.
She shouts out one of the first words in her budding vocabulary – “Papa! Father!” -And pats the pictures with her little hands.
On January 25, 2023, López’s husband, Alberto Vicente López, and their 10-year-old daughter, Lucero, were killed when a drunk driver hit the van they were traveling in on their way home from church. Lopez, who was in the van with her 9-year-old son Anabel, was seven months pregnant with Estrellita at the time.
Erica Lopez and her family were riding in a van on the way home from church in January 2023 when they were hit by a sedan driven by a drunk driver. Lopez’s husband and daughter died as well as another van passenger.
(onscene.tv)
“She will never meet her sister. She will never know what it’s like to run to her father and hug him,” Lopez told The Times in Spanish.
Lopez, 33, wiped tears from her eyes as she talked about her husband and daughter and their lives together. Nothing will bring them back, she said, but for more than a year she’s been waiting for justice and some acknowledgment of the shattered dreams her family endured.
Inside a Santa Ana courtroom Thursday, Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin handed the criminal justice system a measure of tragedy.
Mario Armando Paz Jr. pleaded guilty to three felony counts of aggravated vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and two felony counts of causing injury by driving under the influence of alcohol, along with sentence enhancements.
Yellin immediately sentenced him to 11 years in state prison, about half the time he would have spent behind bars if the jury had found him guilty. The reduced sentence is an acknowledgment that Paz accepted responsibility for his actions early in the court process, Yellin said.
As the judge spoke, a woman sitting in the back of the courtroom held a rosary in her hand and quietly prayed in Spanish.
The court had raised the possibility of an 11-year sentence in previous hearings, when Paz had indicated his willingness to plead guilty. Lopez strongly opposed the lesser sentence.
“This is not enough,” Lopez told Yellin in a statement to the court before sentencing. “My daughter has not been coming back for 11 years.”
Yellin nodded. She responded that there was no number she could offer in the form of a sentence that would bring back her husband or daughter, lamenting that she wished she had that power.
Erica Lopez cries while talking about the accident that took the lives of her husband and daughter in 2023.
(Alan J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“My heart breaks for you as a human being,” he said. “The tragedy of this room is that we can’t fix anything.”
Lopez has unpleasant memories of the moment his family was torn apart.
She remembers how happy they were as they left their church in Yorba Linda that evening. Alberto, 36, Lucero, Annabelle and her sister-in-law piled into a van with other churchgoers to go home after the Bible study. They traveled through city streets to Placentia, where they entered the intersection of Melrose Street and Orangethorpe Avenue. A sedan driven by Paz collided with the side of the van.
Alberto was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene, along with another church member. Lopez said her husband suffered serious head injuries. As soon as she saw him, she knew he was gone, but still, she sat near his dead body on the footpath and pleaded for his survival.
Lucero was taken by ambulance to Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Three other passengers were taken to UCI Medical Center for treatment with serious injuries.
The collision was so strong that the rear part of the van broke. When police investigated the scene, broken glass was scattered at the intersection.
Paz, who was 24 at the time, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. According to court records, his blood alcohol level was .14, or 75% over the legal limit.
Erica Lopez holds her 1-year-old daughter, Estrellita, who was born just weeks after her father and sister were killed when a DUI driver hit the van the family was traveling in.
(Alan J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Paz’s attorney declined to comment on the case.
In seeking to increase Paz’s bail before trial, Placentia Sgt. Frank Garza wrote in an announcement that “there is no indication that he understands the gravity or severity of the tragedy he has caused.”
“The defendant showed no remorse and was only concerned about his devices that were left inside the vehicle he was driving,” Garza wrote.
In the courtroom Thursday, Paz spoke softly as he accepted the terms of his guilty plea and sentence. He looked straight ahead as Lopez delivered his comments on the stage behind him.
Before sentencing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Orue told the court that he opposed the 11-year term. He said Paz was previously arrested in January 2021 on suspicion of driving under the influence in Tustin, but charges were not filed in the case.
“People pray that Mr. Paz learns his lesson and that we never see him here again,” Oru said during the hearing.
As the courtroom emptied, Lopez sat down on one of the wooden benches in the courtroom’s corridor. Estrellita, wearing a fluffy pink dress and two white flowers in her hair, was sleeping comfortably on the car seat near her mother’s feet.
She cried with her head in her hands.
