A 29-year-old motorist involved in a rollover collision with a vehicle towing a trailer on Interstate 215 in Moreno Valley, in which one of her passengers suffered fatal injuries, was drunk at the wheel, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Evelyn Odalma Guzman Munguia of Perris was arrested Sunday following a CHP investigation.
Munguia was briefly hospitalized, but on Tuesday morning she was booked into the Robert Presley Jail on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and other allegations. Bail information was not immediately available.
CHP Officer Javier Navarro said that at 3:30 a.m. Sunday, the suspect was going southbound on I-215 “at a high rate of speed” in her 2008 BMW X5 when she plowed into a trailer attached to a 2023 GMC Sierra pickup hauling an all-terrain vehicle.
“Upon impact, the BMW and ATV overturned on the roadway,” Navarro said. “The BMW continued out of control and landed in the middle lane of northbound I-215.”
Riverside County Fire Department crews reached the location minutes later and pronounced one of the sedan’s passengers, identified only as a 15-year-old Perris resident, dead at the scene.
Munguia and two of her other passengers, neither of whom was identified, were taken to Riverside University Medical Center in Moreno Valley for treatment of moderate injuries.
The pickup driver was not hurt, Navarro said.
He alleged officers confirmed at the scene that the suspect was inebriated. She was cleared to leave the hospital Monday night and go to jail.
CHP investigators were expected to submit a request for charges to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Background information on Munguia was unavailable.