KHTS AM 1220 / FM 98.1 Hometown Station reported recently that a fatal motor vehicle accident in Castaic last Friday led to charges of vehicular manslaughter for an allegedly drunk driver after his passenger died in a wreck on the Interstate 5 freeway over Thanksgiving weekend.
The incident occurred around 2:45 a.m. on the morning of Friday, November 27. An allegedly drunk driver was driving a Ford Focus sedan southbound, against the flow of traffic, in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 south of the Templin Highway area, according to officials with the Newhall Area Office of the California Highway Patrol. The Ford Focus suffered a head-on impact with a Honda Accord sedan that had been northbound at the time of the accident.
The Accord driver sustained major injuries and the two passengers in the Accord sustained moderate injuries. A passenger in the Focus, a Los Angeles man 24 years of age, was declared dead at the scene, with a total of six people injured or killed in the accident.
The Focus’s driver, a 22-year-old man from Los Angeles, faces charges of felony vehicular manslaughter while driving under the influence with gross negligence, with a bail of $200,000 and was booked at the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.
