Oct 14, 2009 11:13 am US/Eastern
Public Wake Held For Girl Killed In DWI Crash
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
-
-
Leandra Rosado, 11, was killed after her friend's mother, 31-year-old Carmen Huertas, flipped the car they were in while apparently drunk.
CBS
-
-
Carmen Huertas, 31, is accused of driving drunk when she lost control of her vehicle, causing it to flip over on the Henry Hudson Parkway on Oct. 11, 2009. One of seven young girls she was driving was killed in the crash.
CBS
-
-
Carmen Huertas, 31, is stabilized in an ambulance after flipping her car over with seven children inside on the Henry Hudson Parkway.
CBS
-
-
Leandra Rosado, 11, was killed after her friend's mother, 31-year-old Carmen Huertas, flipped the car they were in while apparently drunk.
CBS
-
-
Kayla Fernandez was critically injured after the car she was driving in flipped over at the hands of Carmen Huertas, her friend's mother, who was allegedly driving drunk.
CBS
-
-
The remnants of Carmen Huertas' Mercury Sable after the crash.
CBS
A public wake is being held Wednesday afternoon for the young girl killed in a weekend crash on Manhattan's West Side Highway. The daughter of the woman accused of causing the accident by allegedly driving drunk is speaking out about the tragedy.
Brittany Gonzalez has trouble getting down the stairs and even more trouble accepting the fact that her best friend, 11-year-old Leandra Rosado, is dead and her mother is responsible. Police say Carmen Huertas was drunk when the car she was driving flipped over on the Henry Hudson Parkway and slammed into a tree.
"All three girls in the back just flew out when the trunk popped open because it just popped open when we flipped once," Gonzalez told CBS 2's Lou Young on Tuesday. "My friend's seatbelt snapped. Leandra Rosado just flew out and she was the one in the woods."
A family friend gave CBS 2 a video of Rosado singing karaoke and having fun at a birthday party where Huertas is not visible, believed instead to be off somewhere else drinking. Her ex, Ernesto Gonzalez, said on Tuesday that it was cognac and that he was worried about her driving all those kids back to the Bronx.
"I been with her 10 years. I know when she's been drinking," he said. "She wasn't like drunk to the point of incapacitated, but I knew that the amount of liquor she drank, it was gonna hit her, it was gonna hit her sooner or later. It was gonna hit her especially on an empty stomach."
When asked if he tried to stop her, he had this to say:
"I pleaded with her not to drive and she said her man told me he was going to take care of it. He told me he had it, he said, 'I got it, don't worry.'"
But apparently Huertas's husband just took his own baby out of the car and left her to drive everyone else.
"l want him prosecuted and charged too. He looked after his own son, took his son out and let that woman drive away with the rest of the girls," said Rosado's father.
Wednesday's public wake will be held at Redden's Funeral Home on W. 14th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues on Manhattan's west side. The wake is scheduled for 4 p.m.
MORE ON THIS STORY:
DWI Mom Stunner: 'I Pleaded With Her Not To Drive'
Friend: 'She Told Me She Was In Good Hands'
Alleged DWI Mom Taunted Kids Before Fatal Crash
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
2009 Celebrity Deaths
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments