The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office has formally identified two passengers killed in suspected drunk-driving crashes earlier this month in Chula Vista and Coronado.
Eduardo Phelps, 30, of Chula Vista died just after midnight Aug. 13 in a collision at the intersection of Paseo Del Rey and East H Street in Chula Vista.
Eleanor Castillo Tabuena, 58, of San Diego was killed a week later, on Aug. 20, in a crash on Silver Strand State Highway. Both deaths were attributed to blunt-force injuries.
Phelps was the passenger in a Mini Cooper that ran a red light at Paseo Del Rey and East H Street, colliding with a Chevrolet Silverado pickup, police reported at the time of the crash. Phelps died at Scripps Mercy Hospital less than an hour later.
Police said alcohol was likely a factor in the collision but did not specify who was suspected of driving under the influence. The San Diego Union- Tribune reported it was Phelps’ 23-year-old brother, who was at the wheel of the Mini Cooper, who was suspected of drunk driving. He wasn’t immediately charged, police told the newspaper, because he was in a hospital undergoing surgery for injuries sustained in the crash.
On Sunday, Tabuena was riding in a Honda Pilot SUV driven by her husband a little after midnight when a Jeep traveling in the opposite direction on the Silver Strand State Highway crossed the center divide and collided head-on with the Pilot and a Kia Soul.
Six people in the Pilot, including two children, sustained “moderate to severe injuries,” police said at the time. Tabuena was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police believe alcohol was also a factor in that crash.
—City News Service
