A truck carrying four people fleeing the scene of a gang-related shooting crashed into a small car “without the brakes ever being applied,” say court documents filed Friday.
Now those four — Rosalio Andres Alvarez, 19, Argenis Daniel Ramirez-Saedt, 19, Jose Luis Cirilo Munoz-Lugo, 24, and Jose Humberto Mancia, 17 — are charged with two counts of murder each in the Sept. 19 shooting-turned-car-crash in Kearns.
Charging documents say the group was responsible for firing at least two rounds in a residential neighborhood, then speeding off and causing a fatal car crash.
The victims were identified by police as 55-year-old Lloyd Everett Pace and 50-year-old Tami Lynn Woodard, both of Kearns.
With Ramirez-Saedt at the wheel of a stolen truck, charges say, the group pulled up to a house near 5200 West and 5400 South just before 7:30 p.m. A witness told police she saw a man with glasses point a gun out of the rear driver side window, so she ran for cover and heard between two and four gunshots.
Then she heard a “loud crash” and saw three people climb out of the truck, which was upside down, to flee on foot. When police arrived, they found Ramirez-Saedt “partially out of the driver side window,” charges say.
Mancia and Alvarez were hiding in a neighboring yard, charges say, and Munoz-Lugo was “walking on the street, dirty and apparently confused.”
Mancia was the only member of the group wearing glasses at the time of his arrest, charges say. He had been convicted of theft by receiving stolen property, a second-degree felony in juvenile court, making him a restricted person, charges say.
Munoz-Lugo and Ramirez-Saedt belong to a gang that rivals one with which occupants of the targeted residence are associated, charges state.
No one in the house was injured, but one of the people in the truck suffered a minor gunshot wound to the upper leg, Unified police Lt. Brian Lohrke said.
Authorities were unsure whether the wounded suspect Tuesday night was hit by return gunfire from the house or was accidentally shot inside the car by another suspect, Lohrke said.
It was the second night in a row that shots rang out at the home. Neighbors said they heard gunfire the night before, and police received reports of a blue truck fleeing the scene, however, no one was injured or arrested in that episode.
A crash-reconstruction team concluded that the truck Ramirez-Saedt had been driving was traveling 44 mph in a 25 mph zone at the time of the crash. It ran a stop sign and collided with the car carrying Pace and Woodard “without the brakes ever being applied.”
A medical examiner determined that Pace died of blunt force trauma to his head and torso and Woodard died of blunt force injuries to her head. The two were engaged to be married, according to their Facebook pages.
The truck had been reported stolen from Tooele, charges state, along with three pistols. Police found the missing firearms inside the truck, along with a shotgun.
At the scene of the shooting, police found a .45 caliber casing and a .50 caliber casing, which could have come from the pistols, charges say.
A driver behind Pace and Woodard told police he heard the gunshots and saw the truck travel quickly over a dip in the road, causing it to go airborne. It then hit the car, causing both vehicles to roll.
After the crash, the driver approached the vehicles and saw Munoz-Lugo get out of and run from the truck, charges state. He also saw Ramirez-Saedt with a shotgun on his lap, according to charges.
The three men and Mancia, who is charged as an adult, face two counts of murder, a first-degree felony, and discharge of a firearm, a second-degree felony, with gang enhancements in 3rd District Court. Ramirez-Saedt, Munoz-Lugo and Mancia are also charged with theft by receiving stolen property, a second-degree felony, and Mancia faces an additional charge of use of a firearm by a restricted person, a third-degree felony.
Alvarez, Ramirez-Saedt and Munoz-Lugo are being held in the Salt Lake County jail in lieu of $1 million cash-only bail. A judge ordered Mancia to be transported from a juvenile detention center to the jail Friday. Once he arrives, his bail will be the same as his codefendants.
