Authorities Thursday publicly identified a 58-year-old woman who caused a fiery head-on freeway wreck that killed her and a married couple — both San Diego police detectives — while driving the wrong way on Interstate 5 near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sandra Daniels of Ramona was heading north on the southbound side of the freeway at high speed when her Honda Civic crashed into an oncoming Ford Fusion near Dairy Mart Road in San Ysidro shortly before 10:30 a.m. Friday, according to the county Medical Examiner's Office and California Highway Patrol.
Following the collision, Daniels' car caught fire. She died at the scene of the collision, as did the occupants of the other vehicle, Escondido residents Ryan Park, 32, and Jamie Huntley-Park, 33.
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How and why Daniels was driving on the wrong side of the interstate — at speeds as fast as 90 mph, witnesses told the CHP — remains under investigation.
Park and Huntley-Park had been married since 2016, having met at police academy four years earlier, SDPD Chief David Nisleit told reporters. They earned the rank of detective together in July 2018.
The couple were not on duty on the day of the deadly crash, but were following up on cases they were working on, the chief said. The vehicle they were in — apparently being driven by Ryan Park — was city-owned but not a marked police car.
