A Los Angeles man was convicted Tuesday of crashing his SUV into a Boyle Heights home, killing his girlfriend and trying to kill a half-dozen of her family members on Halloween four years ago.
The Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated about five days before finding Eduardo Villareal, 26, guilty of the first-degree murder of his 19-year- old girlfriend, Zurisaday Bonilla, and six counts of attempted murder involving her parents, three siblings and her 3-year-old child.
Villareal slammed his Cadillac Escalade into the family’s home shortly before midnight Oct. 31, 2010, about 20 minutes after an argument with his girlfriend, according to Deputy District Attorney Carolina Lugo.
The vehicle’s black box showed that the vehicle sped up from 60 mph five seconds before the crash to 70 mph two seconds before the crash before slowing slightly to 66 mph one second before the crash, according to the prosecutor.
Villareal’s girlfriend suffered a broken neck and a severed brain stem, and one of her siblings — a younger sister — suffered a broken jaw and memory loss, Lugo said.
The prosecution still has to decide whether to try Villareal on a second murder charge involving his newborn daughter, who was born earlier that month and also died from blunt force trauma suffered in the crash. Before the jury heard opening statements in Villareal’s case, a mistrial was declared on that charge because of information that came in late, the prosecutor said.
— City News Service