Man sentenced in fatal El Monte DUI crash

POMONA -- An Orange County man was sentenced Friday to five years in state prison for a DUI crash that killed a woman on the San Bernardino 10 Freeway in El Monte five days before Christmas last year.

omona Superior Court Judge Jack Hunt imposed the term on Thomas Earl Vanauken, 44, of Anaheim, who pleaded no contest last month to one count of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.

anauken was behind the wheel of a 2009 Acura MDX that rear-ended Edelmira Guardado's 1995 Mitsubishi around 2:45 a.m. Dec. 20 after the 42-year-old Ontario woman slowed for traffic on the eastbound side of the freeway, just east of Santa Anita Avenue, due to construction work.

nvestigators said shortly after the crash that he may have been traveling at more than 120 mph.

uardado died of extensive head trauma. One of her passengers suffered lacerations, and the other escaped injury.

anauken kept driving after the crash and got into the carpool lane, where the Acura hit the center divider and overturned, according to the California Highway Patrol. He was arrested after being treated at a Baldwin Park hospital.