LOS ANGELES — A 36-year-old woman was charged Thursday with second-degree murder and driving under the influence after prosecutors said she drove the wrong way down a busy Chatsworth avenue and slammed her SUV into a Metro bus, killing two passengers and injuring several others, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.
Bailee Lynn Rios of Simi Valley faces two counts of murder, one felony count of driving under the influence of a drug causing injury, and one misdemeanor count of reckless driving on a highway, in case 26SFCF01880, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said. Rios is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Department S of the San Fernando Courthouse, and prosecutors requested bail be set at $4.1 million. If convicted as charged, she faces a maximum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole, the district attorney’s office said.
The crash occurred about 5 p.m. Tuesday at the intersection of Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue in Chatsworth, when Rios was allegedly driving her 2004 Ford Expedition alone at a high rate of speed on the wrong side of the road, ran a red light, and crashed into an in-service Metro bus carrying passengers, according to the district attorney’s office. The Los Angeles County medical examiner identified the two people killed as Daniel Castillo, 46, and Gage Weida, 31. At least five others were injured, two critically, authorities said.
“What is particularly tragic about this case is that this is a preventable tragedy,” Hochman said Thursday during a news conference. “People on that bus at about 5 p.m. were either going to work or maybe coming home from work. They might be going to get a bite to eat, to see family or friends. What they did not expect is what was about to happen.”
Prosecutors said narcotics were recovered from Rios’s SUV, though the exact type has not been disclosed by law enforcement officials. Rios was extricated from the wreckage by Los Angeles firefighters, arrested at the scene, and taken to a hospital for injuries, the district attorney’s office said. Online court records did not list an attorney who could comment on her behalf, and the public defender’s office said it had not been appointed to represent her, according to the Associated Press.
“First and foremost, my heart is with the families mourning the loss of their loved ones and everyone who was affected by this devastating crash,” Hochman said in a statement. “The defendant Bailee Lynn Rios allegedly made the choice to drive while impaired on the wrong side of the road through a red light well above the speed limit, which put the lives of those in her path in danger.”
Court records show Rios has previously faced misdemeanor cases involving allegations including theft, shoplifting, burglary, controlled-substance possession, driving without a license, and speeding, FOX 11 reported. A relative, identified by the station as her uncle Paul, told FOX 11 that Rios struggled with substance abuse: “She was a good little girl when she was young, and she started partying, and no one has really been around her for 15 years.”
The crash was compounded hours later when an NBCLA news helicopter covering the scene fell from the sky, killing the two people aboard — pilot George Marciniw and journalist Eliana Moreno — and a man on the ground, Edy Gutierrez Mejia, according to the Associated Press. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating that crash.
Sources: Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office; Associated Press; FOX 11 Los Angeles; USA Today.