Los Angeles County prosecutors filed charges Tuesday against the alleged offender in Saturday morning’s deadly wrong-way driver crash on the 14 Freeway in Acton-Agua Dulce.
Bradford E. Pate, 38, of Burbank faces two counts of murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and DUI causing injury.
The Rev. Manard Giles, a 77-year-old Quartz Hill minister, died at the scene.
On Monday night, a second victim – Giles’ passenger, Mattie Lee Ferguson, 60, of Lancaster – succumbed to her injuries at Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills.
Pate is expected to be arraigned Thursday at San Fernando Superior Court. He is still in the hospital.
Deputy District Attorney Karen Rizzo said prosecutors will ask that bail be set at $3 million for Pate, who was convicted of DUI in 2007 in Ventura County.
If convicted, Pate faces up to life in prison.
Pate was reportedly driving 2006 Toyota Tundra south in northbound lanes near Escondido Canyon Road at 3:28 a.m. Saturday when he collided with a 2006 Chrysler 300, which swerved and struck a rideshare van.
Giles and Ferguson were in the Chrysler.
Lennard A. Wilds, 47, of Lancaster, another passenger in Giles’s vehicle, was trapped in the car until rescuers could later free him. He sustained critical injuries, and was airlifted to Henry Mayo Hosptial in Valencia.
Juan M. Zamora, 43, of Lancaster, drove the rideshare van, a 2013 Ford Econoline Minor. Zamora was transporting nine passengers to an aerospace work site in Palmdale, CHP Officer Ed Jacobs said that morning.
Two passengers in the van sustained minor injuries. Efren Arrieta, 27, of Lancaster, and Patrick W. Glesby, 42, of Quartz Hill, was wounded with a cut to left arm.
The other passengers: David G. Moreno, 47, Palmdale; Jose Nario, 22, Palmdale; Javier Cobio, 41, Palmdale; Javier Arrieta, 25, Lancaster; and Alfonso Ramirez, 40, Palmdale were not injured.
Traffic on Saturday was tied up until 7:30 a.m.
The crash occurred less than a week after another wrong-way driver, believed to be on drugs, caused a mutli-car pileup that left three people with life-threatening injuries.
2nd Victim Dead as Result of Wrong-Way Driver Crash
