An Anaheim teen originally charged with vehicular manslaughter in the December 2010 deaths of a father and son in Buena Park, just had the charges upgraded against him by prosecutors today to double-murder.
Rafael Lopez, 19, is accused of felony murder of Steven
Uselton, 44, by causing multiple blunt force injuries and internal bleeding and felony murder of Douglas Uselton, 17, by causing blunt force trauma to
the head and internal injuries.
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Lopez, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bail, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years to life in state prison if convicted.
Around
5:30 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2010, 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 Steven Uselton, according to an Orange County District
Attorney's office (OCDA) statement.
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.
The Useltons are survived by a wife/mother and a teenage daughter/sister
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.