A now-former California Highway Patrol officer and a suspected DUI driver made their first court appearances Tuesday on murder charges stemming from the deaths of four people whose vehicle was struck twice then burst into flames on the San Gabriel River (605) Freeway in Norwalk last summer, but their arraignment was postponed.
Former CHP Officer Angelo Rodriguez, 24, and Iris Salmeron, 27, are both facing four murder charges 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.
The two could each face a maximum of life in prison if convicted as charged, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said.
Both defendants appeared in a Bellflower courtroom Tuesday, but their arraignment was postponed until April 27 in Norwalk. The pair were being held on $4 million bail, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John P. Weller increased bail Tuesday to $8 million for Rodriguez and to $8.1 million for Salmeron. Another bail hearing is expected to be held during their arraignment next month.
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 Monday.
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 Friday night by the California Highway Patrol and have remained behind bars since then in lieu of $4 million bail, according to jail records. Hochman said prosecutors will ask that their bail be increased to $8 million each.