Man Killed; Events at Scene of Crash Then Turn Bizarre

A suspected drunk driver killed a 75-year-old man and injured the man’s wife. Then another alleged drunk driver was arrested at the same scene. And a naked man careened by on the hood of his own stolen car.

All this happened within five hours early Sunday at South Beach Boulevard and Lambert Road, in three separate incidents that veered from the tragic to the bizarre.

“It was just a bad night for the intersection,” said Police Sgt. Fred Wiste. “It’s really strange. You can go weeks on the graveyard shift with nothing going on, and then all of a sudden, everything happens in one intersection.”

So much happened--along with the usual heavy weekend load on police--that officers on the overnight shift stayed overtime, and half the day shift came in early.

The incidents at the intersection began at 12:47 a.m., police said, when Gregory Wood, 25, ran a red light on Beach Boulevard and slammed his Ford Ranger into an Acura Legend driven by James Saucedo, 75, of Pico Rivera.

Saucedo died at the scene. His wife, Claire Saucedo, 69, is in stable condition with broken ribs at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Wood, a San Diego resident, is being held at La Habra City Jail on $50,000 bail on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated.

More than 10 officers, traffic coordinators and coroner’s investigators had cordoned off the scene with yellow police tape and cones when another suspected drunk driver appeared, Wiste said.

At 4:54 a.m., Carmen Portillo, 27, allegedly failed to heed a traffic coordinator’s directions to turn away from the accident scene, Wiste said. Instead, the Monterey Park resident allegedly drove through the cones up to the yellow tape and was arrested.

Then, 30 minutes later, the officers’ attention was diverted by a man yelling. They spotted a Toyota Tercel going north on Beach Boulevard in a southbound lane at 50 mph with the headlights not on. As the car approached, the officers spotted a naked man on top. The man, whose name was not released, was the car’s owner, police said.

Police said the owner had jumped out of the shower at the Sunset Inn motel when a woman in his room, 18-year-old Kristi Estabrook, allegedly grabbed his keys and started to drive away with his car.

The owner held on to the top of his car for about two blocks, until Estabrook turned into a Carl’s Jr. parking lot, apparently to avoid officers at the crime scene. The speeding car bounced into the driveway and came to a halt when its oil pan dropped out.

The owner rolled off the top and chased Estabrook, who started to run down Beach Boulevard. Both were stopped by officers.

Estabrook was being held at La Habra City Jail on $50,000 bail on suspicion of auto theft and assault with a deadly weapon. The owner, who had bruised his elbow, declined treatment.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Moe Said, 28, a gas station cashier at Beach and Lambert. “You don’t know what’s going to happen to you. . . . [Usually], the area is very quiet.”