The speed limit on Irving's East Pioneer Drive is 30 mph. Crystal Zuniga, 30, was going two or three times that -- somewhere between 60 and 100 mph as she ferried an SUV full of kids past Gilbert Elementary on Saturday evening.
Zuniga, police say, was drunk, her blood alcohol level at .18, more than twice the legal limit. That would help to explain why she was going so fast, and how she lost control of her 2003 Honda Pilot, veering off the road and crashing into a pair of cars parked in someone's driveway.
The SUV was demolished, as neighbors discovered as they emerged from their homes.
"There was a kid that his body was from the waist up was under the truck we could just see his legs," one told Fox 4. "We were trying to flip it over, it was too heavy, it was like 10 guys but we couldn't, it was too heavy."
Eric Sorto, whose car was totaled in the wreck, described the scene to The Dallas Morning News as "a nightmare, like ... something you'd see in a movie."
There were four children in the car. Suniga's eldest son, 16, was taken to Parkland with a broken pelvis. Her 12-year-old daughter was taken to Children's Medical Center with minor injuries. Her two younger boys, 10-year-old Ricardo Hernandez and 14-year-old Angel Reyes, died at the scene.
Zuniga was taken to Parkland with minor injuries. She was remotely booked into the Dallas County jail Sunday morning on two counts of intoxication manslaughter, two counts of injury to a child, and one count of intoxication assault. Her bond has not yet been set.
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