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Updated June 25th, 2009
Truck Driver Charged
With Murder in Crash
By ERIC NOLAND
The Outlook
A county grand jury last week
sharply raised the ante on the
responsibility of truck driver
Marcos Barbosa Costa in the deaths
of two people at the base of
Angeles Crest Highway on April 1:
It returned an indictment of two
counts of murder.
Costa, who had earlier been
charged with vehicular manslaughter,
pleaded not guilty to the new
charges in an arraignment at
Superior Court in Pasadena.
He had been free on $200,000
bail, but in light of the new charges,
Judge Patricia Schnegg set his bail
at $2.09 million, and Costa was
returned to jail. He will appeal for a
reduction of that amount in a bail
review hearing, which was scheduled
for June 24 but has been
moved to July 10 so that his lawyer
can review the grand jury transcripts.
The indictment also added allegations
of great bodily injury to the
two counts of vehicular manslaughter,
and further charged the 44-
year-old Massachusetts resident
with three counts of reckless driving
causing specified injury to three
victims: La Cañada High School
graduating senior Alison Roybal and Janeen Volsey, both of whom
suffered concussions, and Kyong
Kave, who broke a bone. Volsey is
believed to live locally, but Kave’s
city of residence is not known.
Costa was behind the wheel of
a runaway car-carrier big rig when
it came careening down Angeles
Crest Highway just before evening
on April 1. At the intersection of the
eastbound ramps of the 210
Freeway, the truck slammed into a
red compact car driven by Angel
Jorge Posca, 58, and his 12-yearold
daughter, Angelina, both of
Palmdale, and dragged the car to
the intersection at Foothill
Boulevard, killing both.
The indictment asserts that
Costa “did unlawfully, with malice
aforethought” murder them both,
while further noting that he was
“driving a vehicle in the commission
of an unlawful act ... with
gross negligence.” In each of the
counts alleging injury, the complaint
charges him with “unlawfully
driving a vehicle upon a highway
in willful and wanton disregard for
the safety of persons and property.”
Costa, who told Sheriff’s
deputies that his brakes had failed
on the steep mountain road, plowed
into several other cars at Foothill Boulevard before coming to rest
deep inside the Flintridge
Bookstore & Coffeehouse.
Deputy District Attorney
Carolina Lugo said investigators
looking into the wreck developed
additional information that was presented
to the grand jury, which
resulted in the much more severe
charges. The DA’s office wouldn’t
comment on what that information
was.
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