VISTA — An Oceanside man who drove under the influence, fled from police and caused the deaths of a woman and her 4-year-old daughter in a North County freeway crash pleaded guilty on Oct. 8 to DUI and evading police charges.
Erick Arambula, 25, is expected to be sentenced next month to 12 years in state prison for the crash that killed 29-year-old Courteney Taylor and her 4-year-old daughter Amaya Taylor last April.
Before his plea, Arambula was facing seven felony charges: two counts each of gross vehicular manslaughter, evading a police officer causing death, reckless driving causing death, and driving under the influence causing great bodily injury.
Arambula was fleeing a California Fish and Wildlife officer who attempted to pull him over for blowing a red light and speeding just before the collision along Old Highway 395 in Fallbrook just before the fatal crash, prosecutors said.
Shortly after police terminated the high-speed pursuit, Arambula’s pickup veered off Old Highway 395 and onto the southbound lanes of Interstate 15 before slamming head-on into a Kia carrying Courteney and her daughter, Amaya, according to prosecutors. Neither the mother nor the daughter survived.
The pickup also struck the front end of a white Tesla carrying three passengers, causing minor injuries. Arambula sustained minor injuries in the collision and was arraigned from his hospital bed on April 26.
During a preliminary hearing in January, Deputy District Attorney David Uyar called several witnesses, including California Highway Patrol officers and a California Department of Fish and Wildlife officer who was on the scene the day of the crash, to testify in Vista Superior Court.
Fish and Wildlife Warden Mario Noriega testified that he saw a Chevy Silverado, whose driver was later identified as Arambula, run through a red light on Old Highway 395. Noriega said he pursued the vehicle with his lights on for about 20 seconds until he stopped due to the dangerous rate of speed.
Noriega said the Silverado did not yield or slow down and then crashed into a fence on the side of the 395, which runs alongside and above I-15, creating a cloud of dust. The officer parked in the area, exited his vehicle and saw the Silverado turned upside down and near two vehicles with front-end damage on I-15.
Officers testified in court that Arambula’s vehicle was going over 100 mph at the time of the crash.
Several CHP officers also responded to the scene after the collision. During the preliminary hearing, Officer Alexander Smith became emotional on the stand when describing the child who was pulled from the vehicle, later identified as Amaya Taylor.
Smith and other officers testified that life-saving measures performed on Amaya were unsuccessful. The fire department pronounced Courteney Taylor — who had been trapped in the vehicle and was unable to be immediately extricated — dead at the scene.
Arambula remains in jail without bail following his pleas to charges of DUI causing injury and evading an officer causing injury or death.
Courteney and her family moved to San Marcos from Illinois as a teen. According to a social media post by her mother, Barbara Taylor, she attended local schools, including Woodland Park Middle School, High Tech High and Escondido Charter High School.
She earned her associate of arts degree from Palomar College and was a few weeks from graduating with a bachelor’s degree in sociology when she died.
“We are shattered by the loss of our beautiful, funny, kind, and loving daughter Courteney and her smart, full of life and laughter, gentle, and beautiful 4-year-old daughter, Amaya,” Barbara previously told The Coast News. “There are so many people who have reached out that we didn’t know but were lives that she had touched in both small and big ways. Courteney loved people, and she instilled that in Amaya.”
A GoFundMe page, created last year by Taylor’s family and receiving more than $41,000 in donations, reads: “Everyone who has ever met Courteney has known her as a living angel. Amaya was our family’s guiding light.”
City News Service contributed to this report.
