A 36-year-old woman faces two counts of second-degree murder after prosecutors say she drove an SUV the wrong way while impaired by drugs, struck a Los Angeles city bus, and set off a chain of events that also brought down a news helicopter.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges Thursday against Bailee Lynn Rios, telling reporters she was speeding and under the influence when she drove her 2004 Ford Expedition into oncoming traffic on a busy avenue in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles on Tuesday. Rios allegedly struck another vehicle first, then plowed into the city bus. Two riders, Daniel Castillo, 46, and Gage Weida, 31, were killed.
Minutes later, a TV news helicopter covering the collision crashed nearby, killing pilot George Marciniw, reporter Eliana Moreno, and a man on the ground, 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia. The combined toll: five dead across two catastrophes, all traced back to one driver's alleged decision to get behind the wheel while high.
Rios is being held on $4.1 million bail. She is scheduled to appear in court Friday. As of the charges' announcement, online court records listed no attorney for her, and the Los Angeles public defender's office said it had not been appointed to her case.
The picture that has emerged of Rios in the days since the collision is grim. The New York Post reported that suspected methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia were found on Rios after the wreck. Her uncle told reporters she had battled drug addiction for 15 years.
"She literally, when she was young, tried something once and never came back."
That was how the uncle described the start of Rios's spiral. A friend, Brad Aragon, said Rios had recently expressed fear about the people around her.
"She was saying lately that she was associating with certain people that she shouldn't be associating with."
None of that excuses what prosecutors say happened Tuesday. Rios allegedly ran a red light, crossed into the wrong lane, and drove head-on into a city bus full of passengers. Just The News reported that six other people were injured in the collision, some with what authorities described as "crushing" injuries. Firefighters and paramedics worked to free riders trapped in the wreckage. Rios herself was among the injured.
Daniel Castillo, 46, was on his way home from his job at a car parts warehouse. He rode the same bus every day. His daughter, Johaunna Castillo, said he called her after work that afternoon, told her he was getting on the bus, and said he would call again when he started walking home.
The second call never came.
Johaunna, who moved to Georgia with her mother and siblings as a teenager and now attends college there, spent school breaks and summers in Los Angeles with her father. She described a man who turned his daily commute into a social event.
"The back was his favorite seat. He liked people-watching."
"He would just tell me about all the people he's met and all the things that happened on the bus."
As the Associated Press reported, Johaunna wanted people to know who her father was beyond the headline.
"That's who he was and that's how he should be remembered, someone who brought a lot of joy and love into people's lives."
Gage Weida, 31, the other bus rider killed, has received far less public attention. His name appears in the charges. Hundreds of people have donated to an online fundraiser to cover Daniel Castillo's funeral expenses.
The bus collision was violent enough to draw aerial news coverage. An Angel City Air helicopter carrying pilot George Marciniw and reporter Eliana Moreno was providing footage for NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo 52 when something went wrong.
Broadcast video from the helicopter's final moments captured an alarm sounding inside the aircraft. A woman's voice can be heard saying "uh oh," followed by "You can't pull up?" Then the feed cut out.
NTSB investigator Fabian Salazar, speaking Wednesday, called that broadcast footage "probably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far." Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the alarm suggested a potential loss of engine power and a dangerous decrease in the main rotor speed. Guzzetti added that the pilot appeared to be attempting an emergency maneuver, using the wind to force the rotor to spin again, a last-ditch effort that did not succeed.
The helicopter came down in Chatsworth. At least four cars and two storage containers caught fire. Marciniw, Moreno, and Edy Gutierrez Mejia, a man on the ground, were all killed.
Dashcam video captured by a driver named Victoria Yera Valencia showed the helicopter's rapid final descent. Fox News reported on the footage, which Valencia described in stark terms.
"I downloaded the video of my dashcam. It's a little dot on the video. It's a crisp video, and it just goes down. God, it's so close, it could have happened to anyone."
Eliana Moreno grew up in Orange County and earned a degree in broadcast journalism and political science from Chapman University in 2010, the same year she joined Angel City Air. She reported for several news outlets before beginning her regular flights with Marciniw in 2023. Marciniw, a Southern California native, graduated from Burbank High School in 1974 and had spent decades in aviation.
Since 2000, at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters have occurred in the United States, killing 16 people. The NTSB is investigating both the helicopter crash and the bus collision. The cause of the helicopter's apparent engine failure remains unknown.
On Thursday evening, hundreds of people gathered for a candlelit vigil in Chatsworth. Friends and family brought photos and joined in prayer for all five people killed, the two bus riders, the two helicopter crew members, and the bystander on the ground.
Rios's mother, Cindy Rios, told a reporter Wednesday that she was shocked and saddened by the string of events. She said she had not spoken to her daughter since the arrest and had not been contacted by law enforcement. She could not be reached for further comment Thursday.
Five people are dead. Two were riding a city bus home from work. Two were doing their jobs in a helicopter overhead. One was standing on the ground in the wrong place. And prosecutors say it all traces back to one woman's choice to drive impaired, the wrong way, through a red light, on a busy Los Angeles street.
Accountability starts with the charges. Whether the system follows through is the question that matters now.
