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Davis Huynh, 21 & Phethsamone "Birdy" Bounprakob, 22 Drunk Driving Accident (Friend was driving)

Published Monday, November 14, 2005 by Admin | E-mail this post

[11/14/05]

Two college students were killed and their friend was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after the car they were riding in plunged off Interstate 580 in Oakland in a violent, high-speed crash early Sunday, punctuating a deadly weekend on the roads.

Eight people were killed in crashes Saturday and Sunday in Oakland, Pinole, Martinez, rural Sonoma County and Novato. In the Novato crash, the California Highway Patrol reported finding open alcohol containers in a truck that had been speeding with one passenger hanging halfway out a window.

In Oakland, 21-year-old Tonny Tran was driving a Ford Mustang east on I-580 just after 2 a.m. Sunday when he lost control, said CHP officer Trent Cross. The car rolled over, crashed down an embankment and through trees and bushes and landed just yards from a house near the 35th Avenue exit.

Back-seat passengers Phethsamone "Birdy" Bounprakob, a 22-year-old San Jose State student who had just earned her real estate license, and Davis Huynh, 21, a Laney College student who coached youth basketball, were ejected from the car and died at the scene. Both lived in Oakland.

Tran, also of Oakland, was arrested on suspicion of two counts of vehicular manslaughter as well as felony drunken driving. He and the front-seat passenger suffered minor injuries. Cross said witnesses told investigators Tran was driving recklessly at about 90 mph.

The victims' friends, who stood in vigil near the crash site Sunday and placed flowers on a tire that lay on matted bushes, said Tran's car was one of three carrying about a dozen people driving home from nightclubs in San Francisco. The other cars pulled over, but couldn't find the Mustang until emergency crews arrived.

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