WOODLAND — “This guy is going to kill somebody.”
California Highway Patrol Officer Timothy Lovato made the ominous prediction on the night of Nov. 30, 2015, as he observed a silver Honda Accord barreling south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5, its lights turned off to avoid detection.
Lovato sped alongside the Honda in the freeway’s southbound lanes, his patrol car’s spotlight focused on the fleeing vehicle so that northbound traffic might see it in time to avoid a collision.
“I’m seeing just multiple near-misses,” Lovato testified Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court, describing the cars, trucks and big rigs that swerved away from the oncoming car.
In Dunnigan, the Honda exited a freeway onramp and struck a tree head-on, the impact Lovato compared to “an explosion” as it crumpled the Honda’s front end, pushing the dashboard well into the driver and passenger seats.
It also fatally injured the car’s passenger, 18-year-old Ailiana Fualilia Siufanua, who along with her boyfriend Thomas Phillip Leae were a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, on the run from a pawn-shop robbery and murder in Washington state.
Nearly two years later, Leae, 23, is on trial in Yolo Superior Court, charged with second-degree murder, evading police causing injury or death, and vehicle theft in connection with the crash, as well as the high-speed pursuit that spanned 40 miles across three counties before its violent end.
Prosecutors are seeking a murder conviction under the implied-malice theory that Leae knew his reckless driving behavior was dangerous to human life, and he acted with conscious disregard to that fact.
In her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Deanna Hays told jurors that Leae’s flight from police was the latest in a series of dangerous choices the defendant made in weeks just prior, starting on Oct. 5, 2015, when he stole the Honda that belonged to a friend.
The following month, Leae and Siufanua were identified as suspects in the murder of a Vancouver, Wash., pawn-shop owner, whom Siufanua reportedly shot in the face while Leae served as the getaway driver.
From Washington the pair headed south, capturing the CHP’s attention as they traveled southbound through Glenn County at a high rate of speed. The pursuit began when an officer attempted a vehicle stop near the town of Willows.
“Not only does it not stop, it goes faster,” Hays said of the Honda, which she compared to a missile. “Not only does it go faster, it turns out all its lights.”
Dramatic video
Video from patrol-car cameras played in court this week illustrated the dramatic chase, the blacked-out car veering from lane to lane as it reached speeds up to 111 mph, according to officers’ testimony.
It took an offramp in the Colusa County town of Arbuckle, where Lovato attempted a “pit” maneuver that spun the car around with the intent of stalling its engine. But the driver kept going and returned to the freeway, this time traveling south in the northbound lanes.
Officers continued to follow from the southbound side, shining their spotlights on the darkened car until the crash near the Dunnigan rest stop.
Siufanua died within minutes, the impact tearing her aorta and causing her to bleed to death, forensic pathologist Dr. Arnold Josselson testified.
Leae’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender John Sage, used his opening statement to take issue with the CHP’s decision to continue the pursuit after Leae began driving the wrong way on the freeway, despite policies that call for officers to abandon a chase should it become dangerous to the public.
“That did not happen in this case,” said Sage, who also noted that a large kitchen knife was found amid the wreckage at Siufanua’s feet, although he didn’t elaborate as to the weapon’s significance.
Questioned by both Sage and Hays about his pursuit judgment, Lovato testified Wednesday that he believed he was aiding other motorists as he paralleled Leae from the southbound lanes.
“I didn’t feel that I was in pursuit at that point,” Lovato said, adding that his aim was to illuminate the fleeing car with his spotlight “so that other drivers wouldn’t get into a catastrophic collision.”
Leae has appeared withdrawn during the trial, spending much of the proceedings with his head bowed forward. But he had an emotional outburst Thursday as jurors watched a patrol-car video of the high-speed chase.
As the footage approached the point of the crash, Leae suddenly bolted out of his chair and lunged toward a door leading to an inmate holding area. A court bailiff intercepted him and took him to the floor, where Leae wept but otherwise didn’t resist.
Judge David Reed cleared the courtroom and called an early lunch recess. Leae returned to court that afternoon and remained quiet until the testimony of CHP Officer John Rosendale, who had broken the news to Leae about Siufanua’s death.
Leae cried, Rosendale recalled, but “I didn’t see tears,” he said. “I just saw anger. I didn’t see sadness.”
“F— you, dude,” Leae exclaimed, which earned him an admonition from Reed to compose himself if he wanted to remain in the courtroom.
‘I don’t want to die’
Officers testified that the rural area and relatively light nighttime traffic likely helped avoid an earlier crash, though there were a number of close calls.
Among the near-victims was Willows resident Sarah Wiese, who was coming home from a Sacramento Kings game with her friend’s daughter when she noticed that a big rig next to her had flipped on its high beams.
“Then I saw a car with no headlights” coming directly at her, Wiese, her voice emotional and shaky from the memory, testified. She recalled swerving back to the right, nearly hitting the big rig, as the blacked-out car whizzed past her at about 70 mph.
“All I could think was, I don’t want to die,” said Wiese, adding that the incident still affects her to this day.
“I hardly drive I-5 anymore,” she said. In the nearly two years since, she’s traveled to Sacramento and San Francisco on only three occasions, even though “it’s a trip I used to make all the time.”
The jury is expected to begin its deliberations Friday afternoon.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene