Driver Sentenced In Crash That Killed Sonoma Valley Mom, Daughter

SANTA ROSA, CA — A Santa Rosa man was sentenced Wednesday in Sonoma County Superior
Court to 21 years to life in prison for a fatal DUI collision in 2017. Jose Manuel Lopez-Perez, 26, was sentenced following his conviction for second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office said.

Lopez-Perez was driving a 2004 Ford truck west on state Highway 12 north of Sonoma on Nov. 14, 2017, when he crossed double-yellow lines and collided head-on with an eastbound 2012 Nissan Sentra.

The Nissan driver, Estefania Soto, 27, of Boyes Hot Springs, died at the scene, and her daughter, Kaliyah Adkins, 7, suffered critical injuries and died at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland two days later.

Soto was taking her daughter to elementary school when the collision happened.

Lopez-Perez was drinking beer for several hours in his truck outside a friend's house, and he was refused from buying more beer when he went to a Safeway early that morning because alcohol sales are prohibited before 6 a.m., prosecutors said.

After getting more beer, he resumed drinking in his truck until around 7:40 a.m. when he left to drive his daughter to school. He collided into the victims' Nissan a mile away just north of Agua Caliente Road, according to the district attorney's office.

Lopez-Perez suffered major injuries and he was arrested and arraigned at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. A blood sample showed his blood-alcohol level was 0.17 percent, prosecutors said.

Lopez-Perez was charged with murder because he was convicted of DUI after a vehicle crash on Occidental Road in 2013. He was advised at that time that if he killed someone while driving under the influence, he would be charged with murder, prosecutors said.

District Attorney Jill Ravitch said Lopez-Perez's prison sentence is the longest possible for a repeat drunk driver.

"No one driving a child to school in the morning should meet the terrible fate this family did," Ravitch said. "The selfish choice to drink and drive, after being convicted and sent to impaired driver education training, caused the tragic loss of two lives."

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— Bay City News Service