An Anaheim 20-year-old who as a teen was charged with murdering a father and
son in an early-morning 2010 high-speed, drunken-driving crash, was convicted by a jury today.
Rafael Lopez was
found guilty of two felony counts of murder and faces up to 30 years to life in state prison at his June 7 sentencing in Santa Ana.
]
Rafael Lopez, Teen Held in December Crash That Killed Father and Son, Now Faces Murder Charges
Around 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2010, then-18-year-old Lopez was driving his Mitsubishi sedan at high speeds on Crescent Avenue in Buena Park before accelerating through a red light at the Knott Avenue intersection and smacking into a Buick sedan driven by 44-year-old Steven Uselton, whose son Douglas, 17, was a passenger.
The Buick skidded 130 feet before coming to a stop. The driver and his son, who was being driven to an early-morning high school debate tournament, died at the scene. Lopez, who had a .13 blood alcohol level, was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries.
Lopez was originally charged with vehicular manslaughter but prosecutors later upgraded the counts against him to double-murder.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.