PHOENIX — Thirty minutes after welcoming the new year, a mother of three was killed in a car crash that involved a suspected DUI driver.
Crystal Irene Garcia, 27, was in the backseat of a car driven by her husband Francisco Murrieta when a man driving a Ford SUV hit the couple’s vehicle near 38th Street and Greenway Road, Phoenix police said.
Onboard the vehicle were the couple’s three children, ages 8, 5, and 6 months old. They were sent to the hospital with minor injuries.
Police detained and processed the suspect for a DUI, but they released him “pending the outcome of the ongoing investigation.”
Garcia’s family is not in favor of the man’s release.
“What am I going to do now? I don’t know how to raise three boys without her,” Murrieta said. “Give her justice, she doesn’t deserve any of this, so I just want her to have justice.”
The department said investigators are waiting for blood and the collision reconstruction to determine the appropriate course of action.
Three young boys left without a mother
In a blink of an eye, Murrieta’s life was turned upside down.
“We were just going to go home, and we just took the same route we always take, but we were hit by a drunk driver,” he said.
Garcia and her family were making the five-minute trip home after celebrating the new year at a family gathering when the accident happened, Murrieta said.
“We were merging onto the main road,” he said. “I checked both sides and when I went, I heard her say ‘watch out’ and then I saw the headlights, and we were hit.”
Murrieta was driving, his 8-year-old son in the passenger seat, his wife and two younger children in the back seat, he said.
After the impact, the father of three remembers yelling for his wife, but he says she was not responding. That’s when he ran to the back seat pulled his children out of the car.
“She had head trauma,” Murrieta said. “Her torso was on top of the car seat, I feel like she jumped and moved the baby to protect him.”
The three children were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. The 5-year-old son suffered several bodily injuries.
“My sons, they lost their mom,” Murrieta said. “I lost my best friend… they lost a daughter. It’s not fair.”
Murrieta said his wife of almost 10 years was his high school sweetheart.
Garcia was the second oldest of seven siblings.
“She was a great mom,” said Garcia’s older sister Cynthia Ortiz. “I think the greatest loss is her kids, my nephews, they lost their mom. I don’t know how we are going to do it without her.”
Murrieta said he is grateful for all the support he and his children have received.
“I just lost her, but I know I gained another family, brother, sister and mom, so I’m really thankful for them,” he said.
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to help pay for funeral expenses.
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