Sacramento police arrest driver in San Juan Road crash that killed woman, 2 children
Detectives arrested a woman who was driving a car with 10 other people inside, including a woman and two children who died after their sedan crashed into a tree in Sacramento’s Northgate neighborhood.
Precious Dawn Flowers, 28, of Sacramento was booked Sunday evening at the Sacramento County Jail. She was being held without bail on a felony charge of vehicular manslaughter, jail records show. She’s scheduled to make her first appearance Tuesday afternoon in Sacramento Superior Court.
Flowers faces three counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and nine counts of child endangerment, the Sacramento Police Department announced Monday morning.
Rayshawna Armstrong, 25; Zayden Mangram, 3; and Alexander Leon, 5, died in the crash. Flowers and seven other children suffered serious injuries in the single-vehicle crash. The nine children ranged in ages from 3 to 8.
Police said detectives from the department’s Major Collision Investigations Unit obtained an arrest warrant for Flowers on Wednesday, and patrol officer found her on Sunday in the 4000 block of Stockton Boulevard in south Sacramento.
The sedan struck a tree around 8:15 p.m. on May 31 near the 900 block of San Juan Road. All 11 people in the car were seriously injured. Armstrong died at the scene, and the two children died at a hospital, police said. The eight others, including Flowers, suffered injuries described by police as “serious or critical.”
Police have said investigators believe speed was a contributing factor in the crash, but the exact cause of the collision remained under investigation. On Monday, police said Flowers may face additional charges stemming from the crash.
The car hit the tree along a curving stretch of San Juan Road that has a long history of crashes, resulting in at least one death and 35 injuries prior to last week’s tragedy, a Sacramento Bee analysis of state and local traffic data found.
This story was originally published June 12, 2023 at 12:04 PM.
