Accidental Deaths Los Angeles County

As police continue to investigate the fistfight at a Palmdale intermediate school that left a 13-year-old student dead, community members called Monday for the immediate expulsion of the surviving 14-year-old boy. Some residents also criticized school officials for dismissing race as a possible motive in the fight at Juniper Intermediate School. Stephan Corson, who is black, died Friday after the fight with another eighth-grade student, who is white.

A 5-month-old baby died Friday morning in her Lancaster home after an electric blanket covering her began smoldering, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. Janassia Nash was pronounced dead after paramedics were summoned to the 2200 block of Mulberry Avenue, by her father, said sheriff's spokesman Gabe Ramirez.

Randal Miller and his longtime companion, Barbara Lane, were practically inseparable. The Lancaster couple spent long summer days boating and water skiing at Pyramid Lake. They shared cooking, laundry and cleaning chores around their small ranch house. They jointly cared for their daughter, Alisha, 5, and Lane's son, Wyatt, 10. They talked about culminating their 10-year relationship in marriage later this year.

As a slow warming trend took hold across California, agricultural inspectors spent Monday in citrus groves, vegetable fields and packing houses trying to define the dimensions of the devastation that struck the state's frost-bitten agricultural industry over the weekend. Most of what they discovered was not encouraging.

Five people were killed Saturday afternoon when a driver lost control of his Pontiac Firebird and it became airborne, landing on a westbound car on the Pomona Freeway in the City of Industry. The driver was traveling east on Gale Avenue, parallel to the freeway, when he went up the embankment, through a fence and onto the freeway, said Los Angeles County sheriff's Sgt. Richard Dinsmoor. "Witnesses estimate that the Firebird was going between 80 and 100 m.p.h.," Dinsmoor said.

A 10-year-old boy died and three people were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning apparently caused by a faulty natural gas heater, authorities said Thursday. The victims, whose names were not immediately released, were discovered unconscious by a neighbor in a Mentone Avenue home about 11:40 a.m., Fire Capt. John Penido said. Paramedics took the victims to St. Luke Medical Center and Huntington Memorial Hospital, Penido said. The boy died at 12:55 p.m.

A driver who allegedly sideswiped three parked cars in Reseda on Wednesday while her passenger was hanging her head out the window--resulting in the death of the passenger--has been charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, authorities said Friday. Karen Louise Shaw, 27, also was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

A motorist who is responsible for the death of an 8-year-old boy in Carson was being sought Friday. Allen Cooper Jr. of Carson died Wednesday at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center of injuries he suffered two days earlier, Deputy Russell Shapley said. The youngster was walking across Santa Fe Avenue between Monroe and Carson streets about 3:45 p.m. Monday when he was struck by a late 1980s dark blue or black Cadillac, possibly an Eldorado, that was northbound on Santa Fe.

Police are seeking witnesses to an accident in which a 63-year-old Glendora woman died when her van collided with another car. Lolita Manalo was injured in the 6:18 a.m. accident Monday at Norwalk Boulevard and Florence Avenue. She was airlifted to St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, where she later died. Larry Lloyd, 43, of Whittier, was driving the car that collided with Manalo's vehicle, said Whittier police Sgt. Wyatt Powell.

An 82-year-old woman on the way to visit her doctor died Tuesday after she was run over by her own car in a parking structure at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, authorities said. Marjorie Barrett of Burbank parked her car in the hospital's Physician's Medical Terrace Building at about 1:45 p.m. It then rolled toward her as she walked by, striking her in the chest, said Alicia Gonzalez, a hospital spokeswoman.