60 FREEWAY TRAGEDY 
Driver charged with murder
Prosecutors say Fontana woman acted with ‘conscious disregard for human life’ in car crash
By Greg Cappis and Joe Smilor
Prosecutors charged a 21-year-old Fontana woman involved in a deadly wrong-way crash on the 60 Freeway with six counts of murder because she acted in a “conscious disregard for human life.”
The L.A. County District Attorney’s office charged Olivia Carolee Culbreath on Thursday with a murder count for each of the six deaths that occurred when she drove her red Chevrolet Camaro east in the westbound lanes of the freeway in Diamond Bar around 4:40 a.m. Sunday and collided head-on with a Ford Explorer, according to law enforcement.
All four people in the Explorer died as did Culbreath’s two passengers, the Los Angeles County Office of Coroner has said.
Culbreath faces a maximum sentence of life inPrison and is being held on $6 million bail, according to district attorney spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani.
“She acted in conscious disregard for human life, and that is why she was charged with murder,” Ardalani said.
She clarified that driving the wrong way on a freeway constitutes a conscious disregard for human life.
Culbreath is being held in the jail ward at L.A. County-USC Medical Center as she recovers from injuries suffered in the early morning crash — a broken femur and ruptured bladder — according to officials. At the hospital on Sunday, California Highway Patrol officers arrested Culbreath on suspicion of driving under the influence and manslaughter.
She has not been charged with either of those offenses.
“We do not have a blood alcohol level at this point,” Ardalani said.
CHP spokesman Rodrigo Jimenez wouldn’t say if they measured Culbreath’s blood alcohol content or release the results, calling the case an ongoing investigation.
Jimenez said officers are attempting to contact anyone who witnessed the crash or saw Culbreath before the wreck that shutdown the highway for hours as investigators scoured the scene and attempted to identify the deceased.
The four occupants of the Explorer who died are Gregorio Mejia-Martinez, 47, Leticia Ibarra, 42, Jessica Jasmine Mejia, 20, and Ester Delgado, all of Huntington Park. Kristin Melissa Young, 21, of Chino, and Culbreath’s 24-year-old sister Maya Louise Culbreath from Rialto were riding with Culbreath and died. Olivia Culbreath was convicted of a prior DUI in San Bernardino County on Sept. 13, 2009.
Ardalani, the D.A. spokeswoman, said she couldn’t speak to any prior convictions and couldn’t say if the previous DUI impacted the prosecution’s decision to charge Culbreath with murder.