A 23-year-old Long Beach driver who ran over and killed a family of three during an alcohol-fueled crash in Bixby Knolls on Halloween night in 2019 was convicted Tuesday morning of murder.
Jurors deliberated for around two hours before finding Carlo Adrian Navarro guilty of second-degree murder for the deaths of Joseph Awaida, 30, his wife Raihan Dakhil, 32, and their son, 3-year-old Omar Awaida.
That Navarro, then 20, was driving after drinking alcohol and that he caused the deaths of the three family members was not disputed during his Los Angeles Superior Court trial.
Instead, jurors were tasked with deciding whether Navarro committed second-degree murder under an “implied malice” legal theory that he knew driving drunk was dangerous to human life but did it anyway, as argued by prosecutors, or whether he was unaware of the full dangers of drunken driving and his actions constituted lesser counts of voluntary manslaughter, as countered by the defense.
Joseph Awaida, who worked at his father’s auto shop, and Dakhil, a social worker, had spent the night trick-or-treating with their young son and spending time at a relative’s home. The couple and the boy, who was dressed in a Halloween lizard costume, were walking home at the time of the crash.
According to statements later made to police, Navarro had obtained a bottle of Jack Daniels on credit from Green Diamond Liquor and taken several shots of the alcohol before getting into his black Toyota Sequoia to drive to a park to drink with friends.
According to prosecutors, Navarro was traveling at “freeway speeds” of twice the legal limit through a residential neighborhood, blew through two stop signs and then, after failing to negotiate a curve along Country Club Drive near Bixby Road, went over a curb and drove onto a sidewalk, where he struck the three victims from behind.
The parents ended up in the roadway, while the boy ended up underneath a car parked on the opposite side of the street. Bystanders attempted to aid them, but all three died from injuries sustained in the crash.
Navarro remained at the scene of the crash, with his attorney describing him as sitting on a curb and waiting for police. Witnesses, however, described Navarro as slurring his words and appearing unsteady after the crash and believed he was inebriated.
Navarro was later recorded telling officers “I was drunk driving and I realized I had hit someone.” Officers estimated that he had around a 0.16 percent blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash, double the legal limit for driving.
In seeking a second-degree murder conviction, prosecutors pointed to Navarro’s own words to police as proof that he knew driving drunk was dangerous to human life but did it anyway. They also noted that, months earlier, an apparently drunken Navarro was found by police sleeping in his SUV parked in an alley. He later told authorities that he chose to sleep in the vehicle because “I knew that I was too drunk to drive.”
“That should have been his wake-up call, but it wasn’t,” prosecutor Karen Brako told jurors during her closing arguments on Friday.
Navarro’s attorney, Bryan Schroeder, said he understood that jurors could find Navarro guilty of vehicular manslaughter, but denied that his culpability rose to the level of second-degree murder. He described it as “a first-time DUI with horrible consequences.”
The defense attorney told jurors that Navarro didn’t understand the potentially deadly consequences of driving drunk, noting that in one of the recorded conversations with police Navarro told them that “I really didn’t think about hitting someone” when he decided to drive that night.
“A 20-year-old kid out with his friends on Halloween?” Schroeder told jurors during his own closing arguments. “Kids do stupid stuff. For the sake of all our kids, remember that.”
Navarro faces up to 45-years-to-life in prison when he returns to court for sentencing on Sept. 15.