The Awaida family was well known for their giving nature and selfless volunteer work before a young driver hit and killed them while they walked home on Halloween 2019.
Carlo Navarro, 23, was convicted of murder for crashing into Joseph Awaida, Raihan Dakhil and their son Omar as they walked past Los Cerritos Park on Halloween night in 2019.
The liquor store owner also admitted she conspired with her daughter to open a new location after state regulators pulled her previous license for criminal behavior.
Carlo Adrian Navarro, who was 20 at the time of the crash, could be sentenced to a maximum of 45 years to life in prison.
The horrors of the crash and the fact that 20-year-old Carlo Navarro was behind the wheel were never in dispute at trial. His mindset is the key question for jurors.
Trial began Thursday for Carlo Navarro, the underage driver accused of crashing into 3-year-old Omar Awaida and his parents while they walked home from trick-or-treating in 2019.
A jury will now have to decide whether the 20-year-old driver committed murder when he ran over a 3-year-old boy and his parents while they trick-or-treated.
A defense attorney accused the Long Beach city prosecutor of delaying a court hearing in a high-profile drunken driving case, giving investigators more time to interview the suspect, but a judge said authorities did nothing improper.
A young man accused of killing three people as he drunkenly sped through a neighborhood filled with trick-or-treaters appears to have acted so recklessly that he may have committed murder, a Long Beach Superior Court Judge ruled Thursday.
On a serene Sunday evening at Los Cerritos Park, candles, altars and three new trees honored a family of whose lives were lost in a tragic crash last year on Halloween.
