WHITTIER — Officials jailed a Baldwin Park woman on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated early Saturday following a crash that killed a 26-year-old Fontana woman, authorities said.
Criselda Valderrama, 20, was arrested in connection with the crash.
Coroner’s officials withheld the name of the dead woman pending notification of her family.
The incident occurred about 2:25 a.m. on the northbound 605 Freeway near Washington Boulevard, in an unincorporated county area near Whittier, California Highway Patrol officials said in a written statement.
The woman who was killed and two other 26-year-old Fontana women were inside a stalled Honda Civic after they crashed into a shoulder guardrail, officials said.
“(Valderrama) failed to notice the Honda stopped in the traffic lane and collided into the rear of the Honda,” the statement said.
The fatal victim was initially driving the Civic, but switched seats with a rear passenger following the first crash, authorities said. The other women in the Honda suffered minor and moderate injuries.
Valderrama, who drove a 1991 Toyota Previa, was hospitalized with moderate injuries, CHP officials said.
According to court records, Valderrama is being held in lieu of $25,000 bail. No information on her initial court date was available Saturday.
Valderrama’s MySpace.com Web page indicates she is a student at Cal State Long Beach and a graduate of Bishop Amat High School in La Puente. It also lists her as working at the Cal State Long Beach campus book store and Disabled Student Services Center, as well as a home health care company based in West Covina.
Her postings on Twitter.com talk about studying for upcoming exams.
A Twitter message sent Friday morning read, “I was driving in the carpool lane by myself and just as i exited i saw that the car a mile behind was highway patrol, close call!”
According to CHP logs, lanes of the freeway were blocked for more than three hours following the crash.