Cops Make Arrests in Halloween Hit-and-Run

Neighbors mistook girls for dolls, they flew so far
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 2, 2014 5:00 PM CST
Cops Make Arrests in Halloween Hit-and-Run
Brianna Diaz, 12, left, and Sandra Anderson, 13, of Orange, Calif. light a candle at a street-side memorial in Santa Ana, Calif. on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 where a hit-and-run occurred.   (AP Photo/Orange County Register, Ken Steinhardt)

Police today made multiple arrests in a Halloween hit-and-run that killed three teenage girls and left a California neighborhood reeling, the AP reports. Police in Santa Ana, Calif., gave no details on the arrests but had tracked the black Honda SUV to the registered owner's home. Meanwhile, about 70 mourners came together yesterday at a curbside memorial, saying the impact was so horrific that the 13-year-olds—twins Lexandra and Lexi Perez, and friend Andrea Gonzalez—looked like airborne dummies or rag dolls, the LA Times reports. A teenager living nearby thought it was fake until she brushed a girl's hair back and saw the truth: "I knew she was dead," she says. "Her eyes were closed. She looked peaceful."

A 46-year-old man who lives in the Perez twins' apartment complex says they were known as "las munequitas" or "the dolls," were always together, and said a polite "good day" in Spanish and English. A 13-year-old who says he was Andrea's boyfriend describes her as "always energetic and kind. She was caring. She was sweet." She wrote him a love poem, he says, describing her feelings with candy wrappers. A neighbor who tried chasing the SUV and later checked the girls for pulses got emotional when talking about his own kids. "They cross here," he says. "Some of them go to this school." He says all three trick-or-treaters wore dark costumes with black leggings. (More hit-and-run stories.)

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