Inset: Leonardo Rodriguez (Ventura County District Attorney’s Office). Background: U.S. Highway 101 in Newbury Park, Calif., where Rodriguez crashed his car while driving 124 mph, killing his friend and girlfriend (Google Maps).
A 21-year-old man in California is going to prison for killing his girlfriend and friend, traveling more than 120 mph when he tried to pass another car by driving onto the shoulder of the highway, slamming into a parked tractor-trailer and ejecting both victims from the vehicle.
A Ventura County judge last week sentenced Leonardo Rodriguez to serve five years and four months in a state correctional facility for the October 2024 crash that caused the deaths of Serenity Rizkalla and Michael Estrella, authorities announced. The sentence was handed down after Rodriguez pleaded guilty in June to two felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter.
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According to a news release from the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, Rodriguez was driving a black Honda Accord southbound on Oct. 31, 2024, on U.S. 101 in Newbury Park at 5:26 a.m. when he “attempted to pass a vehicle traveling in the slow lane by driving onto the shoulder.”
Unbeknownst to Rodriguez, a tractor-trailer was parked on the shoulder just ahead of his vehicle.
The front passenger side of Rodriguez’s Honda slammed into the rear left portion of the truck. Rizkalla, Rodriguez’s girlfriend, was sitting in the front passenger seat. Prosecutors said she “was ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene.”
Estrella, Rodriguez’s friend, was seated in the right rear passenger seat and “was also ejected” from Rodriguez’s car and pronounced dead at the scene.
A third passenger who was seated in the left rear seat survived the crash and was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries. Rodriguez suffered minor injuries.
The crash was captured by a motorist’s dashcam. Investigators found no evidence that alcohol or drugs contributed to the collision, according to the DA’s office.
“At 124 miles per hour there’s no margin for error,” Deputy District Attorney George Brietigam, who prosecuted the case, said in a statement. “The deaths of Serenity Rizkalla and Michael Estrella were the foreseeable result of the defendant’s shockingly poor judgement and dangerous choices. This tragedy was preventable, and their families will forever live with the consequences. We hope today’s sentence provides their loved ones with some measure of closure.”
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