Neither the bus nor the driver in Sunday's Colusa County crash had the legal right to be on the road that evening, state officials confirmed Wednesday.
Owners of the 19-year-old former Greyhound bus had legally designated it in May as nonoperational on state forms, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
"It means you cannot drive the vehicle," DMV spokesman Mike Marando said.
According to accounts, however, Daniel Cobb of Cobb's Bus Service in Sacramento and Modesto continued to operate the bus, regularly ferrying gamblers to and from several Northern California casinos.
DMV officials said Cobb had registered the bus for use the previous two years, and had been mailed California license plates.
It remains a mystery why Cobb designated the vehicle this year as nonoperational, and why it had Texas license plates on it three years after being sold to a California company.
Texas Department of Transportation records show the 1989 bus was previously registered there by a subsidiary of Greyhound Lines.
Cobb, 68, was among eight people killed Sunday when the bus careened out of control and tumbled into a ditch on a narrow country road en route to the Colusa Casino Resort an hour north of Sacramento.
Another 35 people were injured, most of them seniors. Several were reported in serious condition Wednesday in various hospitals.
California Highway Patrol officials said they were continuing an "all encompassing" investigation into the cause of the crash as well as the murky circumstances surrounding the small but busy company that seemed to have flown at least partially under the radar.
"This thing could take six to nine months before we have finality," CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said.
The investigation includes a look at what Quintin J. Watts, 52, was doing behind the wheel Sunday.
Watts is on parole for a 2007 conviction in San Joaquin County for possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, state corrections officials said.
He had a long-standing commercial driver's license with authorization to pilot tankers and trucks that carry hazardous materials.
But he did not have DMV authorization to drive a passenger bus, the agency's Jan Mendoza said.
CHP officials arrested Watts on suspicion of driving under the influence, saying they based the arrest on an off-duty sheriff's deputy's description of the bus movements just before the crash, and on Watts' behavior after the crash. They also are looking into reports Watts fell asleep. Results of a blood-alcohol test are pending, the CHP said.
Watts, who was reported as stable and conscious in Woodland Memorial Hospital on Wednesday, declined requests to be interviewed.
His family issued a statement through the hospital spokeswoman: "We would like to share our condolences to those who have lost their loved ones and also let everyone know we are praying for those who are still in the hospital," it reads.
For dozens of families, many of them of Mien and Hmong heritage, the post-crash trauma is far from abating.
Offers of help for the families are coming into the Hmong Women's Heritage Association, including counseling services by the Red Cross, said Koua Franz, the association's executive director.
"You can imagine what the families are going through," she said.
CHP officials met with families Tuesday night and Wednesday to share information. Franz, however, said she fears some families are not getting help they could use.
Families are scattered at vigils in nine hospitals throughout the region. Victims went to hospitals in Santa Rosa, Chico, Redding, Oroville and Sacramento.
"I don't know if they're receiving the information they need," Franz said.
In coordination with other community groups, she is hoping to use ethnic radio to disperse information about help for families.
The association is arranging with the CHP to develop a catalog of belongings salvaged from the wreck so that families can apply to claim them, she said.
Bus company owner Cobb had been in the passenger service for decades, friends said.
One person who says she knew him well described him Wednesday as a gentle and humorous man.
"You never see him without a smile on his face," Tara Fugler said.
She was among a group, mainly seniors, who rode Cobb's bus monthly to Thunder Valley Casino. That group's next outing had been planned for this Wednesday.
Call The Bee's Tony Bizjak, (916) 321-1059.
