A 36-year-old woman faces two counts of second-degree murder after prosecutors say she drove impaired the wrong way down a Los Angeles street and plowed into a city bus, setting off a chain of events that killed five people in all.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges against Bailee Lynn Rios at a news conference Thursday, two days after the collision in the Chatsworth neighborhood left two bus riders dead and drew a TV news helicopter that itself crashed minutes later, killing its pilot, its reporter, and a man on the ground below.
Rios allegedly drove her 2004 Ford Expedition the wrong way down a busy avenue, swerved into oncoming traffic, ran a red light, struck another vehicle, and then slammed into a Los Angeles city bus. Hochman said she was speeding and impaired by drugs at the time. She is being held on $4.1 million bail and was scheduled to appear in court Friday.
Investigators found suspected methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia on Rios after the wreck, the New York Post reported. Rios has a prior criminal record that includes drug possession, speeding, driving without a license, burglary, and shoplifting. A friend, Brad Aragon, told the Post that she had struggled with a 15-year drug addiction and had recently been "associating with certain people that she shouldn't be associating with."
Daniel Castillo, 46, and Gage Weida, 31, both of Los Angeles, died in the collision. Castillo was riding the bus home from his job at a car parts warehouse. His daughter, Johaunna Castillo, who moved to Georgia as a teenager and attends college there, said her father spent school breaks and summers with her in LA.
She described a man who loved the simple rhythm of his daily commute. As NPR reported, Johaunna recalled her father's favorite spot on the bus:
"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."
She added: "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." Hundreds donated to an online fundraiser to cover Castillo's funeral expenses.
Six other people were injured in the bus collision, including Rios herself. At least one bus passenger was ejected from the wreckage, and Just the News reported that firefighters worked to free trapped riders, some of whom suffered what authorities described as "crushing" injuries.
The bus collision drew aerial coverage from a Eurocopter AS350 operated by Angel City Air, a contractor that provided helicopter reporting for NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo 52. Aboard were pilot George Marciniw and reporter Eliana Moreno. Approximately two hours after the bus crash, their helicopter went down in the same Chatsworth neighborhood, the Associated Press reported.
Marciniw and Moreno were killed. So was Edy Gutierrez Mejia, 29, who was on the ground when the helicopter struck. The aircraft caught fire, and at least four cars and two storage containers burned in the aftermath.
Dashcam footage captured by a driver named Victoria Yera Valencia showed the helicopter's rapid final descent. She told Fox News: "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."
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating both the bus collision and the helicopter crash. NTSB investigator Fabian Salazar said Wednesday that the final seconds of video the helicopter crew broadcast before the crash are critical to understanding what went wrong:
"That video is probably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far."
An alarm can be heard in the cockpit audio captured by the broadcast feed. Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the alarm suggests a potential loss of engine power and a dangerous decrease in main rotor speed, the spinning blades that keep a helicopter airborne. Guzzetti said Marciniw appeared to be attempting an emergency maneuver, using wind to force the rotor to spin again, when the aircraft went down.
Marciniw grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School in 1974. Moreno was born in Orange County, earned a broadcast journalism and political science degree from Chapman University in 2010, and joined Angel City Air that same year. She began flying with Marciniw in 2023. Both reported for several news outlets through Angel City Air's contract work.
At least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters have occurred in the United States since 2000, killing 16 people, according to a review of federal accident records and news accounts. The Chatsworth crash added three more names to that toll.
Cindy Rios, the suspect's mother, was reached by a reporter on Wednesday. She said she had not spoken to her daughter since the arrest and had not been contacted by law enforcement. The Associated Press quoted her directly:
"The fact that my daughter was involved and was the cause of it is just extremely disturbing. If anything, I'm sorry for the other families... My daughter's alive. People lost their lives."
Hours before the crash, Rios had sent a text message to Aragon that hinted at fear. "Brad, it's not a joking matter on this bf thing its serious and im honestly scared but yes of course imma come see you," she wrote at 1:24 p.m. Tuesday. The meaning of the message remains unclear.
Online court records did not list a lawyer for Rios as of Thursday. The Los Angeles public defender's office said it had not been appointed to represent her. No charges have been announced in connection with the three helicopter crash deaths, and the NTSB has not yet issued preliminary findings on the cause of that crash.
Hundreds gathered for a candlelit vigil in Chatsworth on Thursday evening to remember all five people killed.
Five people are dead because one driver allegedly got behind the wheel impaired. Accountability starts with the murder charges, but for the families burying their loved ones, no courtroom verdict will undo what Tuesday took from them.
