A now-former California Highway Patrol officer and a suspected DUI driver pleaded not guilty Monday to murder charges stemming from the deaths of four people whose vehicle was struck twice and then burst into flames on the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway in Norwalk last summer.
Former CHP Officer Angelo Rodriguez, 24, and Iris Salmeron, 27, are each charged with four counts of murder in connection with the July 20, 2025, deaths of Juliana Hamori, 23, of Huntington Beach; Armand Del Campo, 24, of San Pedro; Jordan Partridge, 23, of Los Angeles; and Samantha Skocilic, 22, of Westminster.
Along with the murder counts, Salmeron was also charged with driving under the influence of alcohol causing bodily injury and driving under the influence with 0.08% alcohol causing bodily injury.
Rodriguez and Salmeron could each face a maximum of life in prison if convicted as charged, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said last month when the charges were filed.
Rodriguez — who had been with the CHP since 2023 but was fired after the crash — allegedly was driving more than 130 mph without a siren or emergency lights on when he struck the Nissan containing the four victims when the car entered the carpool lane of the southbound 605 Freeway approaching Imperial Highway. Rodriguez then pulled over to the side of the freeway, turned the patrol car vehicle’s lights off and waited for three minutes without alerting a CHP dispatcher about the crash before exiting the freeway, Hochman said. The vehicle containing the four victims remained disabled in the carpool lane, the district attorney told reporters at the March 16 news conference.
The officer subsequently called a CHP dispatcher to report the collision without indicating that he was driving the CHP vehicle involved in the crash, then circled around and returned to the freeway at about 12:59 a.m., roughly two minutes after Salmeron’s vehicle crashed into the disabled car, according to the district attorney.
“… So, she’s driving at over 110 miles an hour, she’s above the legal limit for alcohol consumption and she crashes into the Nissan in the HOV lane, lighting the car on fire and horribly burning the four innocent victims inside the car,” Hochman said.
The district attorney said “this horrible tragedy could have been prevented had this officer not been driving at ridiculously high speeds for no reason whatsoever without his lights and sirens on, if the officer hadn’t gone off to the side of the road and not called in this incident immediately, had this other individual, Ms. Salmeron, not been driving at an incredibly excessive speed, drunk, while she crashed into this car.”
Hochman said “the initial crash and the actions of Officer Rodriguez were a substantial factor in the ultimate deaths of these four people,” but said that vehicle’s occupants were alive after the first crash.
“The second crash is what ignited the car and burned the occupants. We know that they died as part of the second impact,” he said.
Rodriguez had extensive training about safe driving and responding to traffic collisions while working for the CHP, and had been involved in two prior on-duty traffic collisions, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Salmeron — a Bellflower resident whom the District Attorney’s Office said had attended a high school event where the dangers of driving under the influence were discussed — and a passenger in her vehicle were injured in the crash.
The former officer and Salmeron were arrested March 13 by the California Highway Patrol and have remained behind bars since then, according to jail records.