Yolo grand jury finds no ‘criminal act’ in death of girl hit by vehicle at Woodland gas station
A Yolo County criminal grand jury found there was no probable cause evidence to prosecute a father initially accused of involuntary manslaughter in a vehicle crash earlier this year that killed a 2-year-old girl at a Woodland gas station.
Authorities said Julio Navarro-Vidrio, 34, of Woodland left his two-year-old daughter unattended in his parked pickup at the gas station. The pickup rolled forward and fatally struck 2-year-old Ailahni Sanchez Martinez, who had been with her family at her parents’ taco stand at the gas station.
The investigation showed that on March 16, Navarro-Vidrio went inside the gas station before his daughter climbed into the driver’s seat and put the vehicle’s gear into drive without pressing the brake pedal, according to a news release from the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
A defect in the vehicle allowed the toddler to to put the pickup’s gear into drive, according to the news release. Prosecutors said the vehicle rolled forward and hit Ailahni as she was eating at the taco stand.
“The vehicle was parked about to pump gas when the adult went inside to pay, and there was an underage baby in there. And out of nowhere the vehicle started going by itself,” Mireya Sanabria, Ailahni’s aunt, wrote in March on a GoFundMe page she created to help her family with funeral costs.
She said her niece, who was just shy of her third birthday, was beautiful, talented and “our little princess” taken too soon.
The incident was reported about 3:45 p.m. in the parking lot of the 76 gas station at the corner of West and Court streets. Officers went to the gas station after a report of a child having been hit by a vehicle, according to the Woodland Police Department.
The officers arrived and learned that family members had taken the injured girl to a hospital, where she died.
Investigators determined that neither alcohol nor drugs was a factor in the incident, and it was not a hit-and-run. Police said all involved in the incident “were cooperative and provided statements to the police.”
On May 2, prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Navarro-Vidrio on charges of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. His charges included enhancements alleging the crime involved a “high degree of cruelty, viciousness, or callousness” and the victim was vulnerable, according to the complaint.
Navarro-Vidrio was arraigned May 10 and pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges in Yolo Superior Court. He was released on his own recognizance pending the conclusion of his case, court records show. A preliminary hearing for the judge to determine whether Navarro-Vidrio should stand trial had been scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon.
The case was presented to an impaneled criminal grand jury, which reviewed collected evidence and heard testimony. California criminal grand jury sessions are held in a closed courtroom, and a grand jury indictment would allow the case to move straight to trial and bypass the preliminary hearing phase.
On Tuesday, the grand jury released its decision not to indict Navarro-Vidrio in the vehicle crash that killed Ailahni. Prosecutors said the grand jury’s findings mean means that jurors “did not find any probable cause that the incident was a criminal act.”
In response to the grand jury’s findings, the District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday dismissed the criminal case against Navarro-Vidrio.
