Woman Dies in Crash on Christmas Morning

VAN NUYS —  Emergency lights flashing, the ’79 Chevy station wagon barreled down Victory Boulevard like an ambulance early Christmas morning, speeding and running red lights along the way, police said.

Roberto Perez, allegedly drunk, was at the wheel, in a hurry to get his pregnant wife to the hospital.

Michelle Pagan, 26, returning to her Woodland Hills home in her Honda Civic after Christmas Eve dinner at a friend’s house, probably never saw Perez coming.

Their paths crossed at 3:15 a.m., police said, when Perez, traveling at an estimated 60 mph, plowed into the driver’s side door of Pagan’s car at the intersection of Van Nuys and Victory boulevards.

Pagan died at the scene. Paramedics rushed Perez’s wife, Sandra, to Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where she gave birth to a healthy baby on Christmas morning, according to Officer Gary Lewis of the Los Angeles Police Department.

But Roberto Perez, also 26, was not there to witness his child’s birth. After the crash, officers at the scene smelled alcohol on his breath and said he appeared intoxicated. Perez was arrested and booked into Van Nuys Jail on suspicion of murder. His bail is $1 million.

Police said the Sun Valley man was intentionally running red lights to get his wife, Sandra, to the delivery room. “He had his emergency flashers on, he knew what he was doing,” said Officer Joanna Needham of the LAPD’s Valley Traffic Division.

“He had been driving like that for some time, according to witnesses. He nearly hit two other people.”

It was unclear how close Sandra Perez was to giving birth during her husband’s alleged reckless rush to the hospital.

“The information that we got is that birth was not imminent,” said Bob Collis, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Officials at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where the baby was born, refused to discuss the case. The time of birth was unclear.

Sandra Perez suffered only minor injuries in the crash, and Roberto Perez was unhurt.

“The fact that he was drunk is really upsetting,” said Alvin Pagan, one of Michelle Pagan’s four brothers. “And the fact that he’s still alive.”

Pagan’s siblings were numb Christmas morning, speaking of their sister in the present tense.

“She is always smiling,” said Alvin. “You always see her big teeth just like mine.”

Rather than the Christmas celebration they had planned, Pagan’s siblings spent the day making arrangements for her parents, a cousin and another brother to fly in for services for their baby sister.

The victim, an assistant manager at a Blockbuster video store in Sherman Oaks, had a big heart and easy smile, her brother said. She loved spending time with her relatives--particularly her 5-year-old nephew--and often planned family gatherings.

She was also a consummate movie buff. The night she died, she took her brother Humberto Pagan and a couple of friends to an 8 p.m. showing of “Titanic” at a theater in Woodland Hills.

“She was crying through the whole thing,” Humberto said.

After the movie let out, she dropped her brother off at the Woodland Hills home they had bought four months earlier with their parents’ help. Then she went to a friend’s house and had a big Christmas Eve dinner.

She was supposed to stay the night at her friend’s, but in the early hours she decided to drive home.

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Her brothers say she probably wanted to finish getting her young nephew’s presents ready. She had planned to spend Christmas afternoon with four siblings at her eldest brother’s house in Ventura.

She wouldn’t have had much time on Christmas morning for gift wrapping.

She had volunteered to work the early shift at Blockbuster so that others could have the day off, as she did most Christmases, said her brother, Alvin.

“That’s just the way she is. She’s a giving person,” he said. “She let other people spend Christmas with their families and she took up the slack.”

When she told her friends she was going home, they urged her to stay, Humberto said.

Instead, at the end of a long, happy night, Michelle Pagan got in her car and headed home. Before she drove away, she probably crossed herself.

“She always does the sign of the cross when she gets in the car,” Humberto said.

At 7 a.m., William Pagan, Michelle’s eldest brother, got a call from the coroner’s office. He broke the tragic news to the rest of the family.

Word of Pagan’s death spread fast among her co-workers at Blockbuster. “Everybody knew her,” said one employee. “And everybody liked her.”