Murder Trial Prosecutor: Trucker's Shortcut Cut Short Two Lives

Calling big rig a “25-ton lethal weapon,’’ Deputy District Attorney Carolina Lugo told a Pasadena jury Tuesday that the truck driver was not a victim of circumstance and that the fatal 2009 wreck was not an accident.

“This is not a traffic case where someone happens to get killed,’’ Lugo said during her closing argument. “If you don’t operate a truck carefully…you do what he did. You turn this big rig into a death rig.’’

Costa’s 18-wheel semi truck lost its brakes and barreled down Angeles Crest Highway on Apr. 1, 2009. As the rig raced south toward La Cañada Flintridge, , were turning north to head home to Palmdale. The Poscas died as soon as the car-carrying big rig rammed into their Ford sedan.

Lugo said the police investigation revealed the elder Posca had time only to outstretch his hand to try to protect his daughter.

After slamming into the Poscas’ car, Costa’s truck crashed into several vehicles, caused multiple injuries and eventually bulldozed into the former .

Costa is charged with two counts each of second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, along with three counts of reckless driving causing injury.

Lugo spent Tuesday afternoon encapsulating witness testimony from the four-week trial and underscoring her point that the 46-year-old Brazilian native never should have traversed curvy, mountainous Angeles Forest Highway, let alone the narrower, steeper Angeles Crest Highway. Costa and his co-driver set out from the Palmdale area that day, headed to Anaheim, and opted to take “a shortcut’’ through the mountains, rather than an all-freeway route, she said.

, who will make his closing argument Wednesday morning, has told the jury of 10 men and two women that Costa relied on the GPS-suggested route and did everything “under the sun’’ to stop his racing vehicle. Costa testified last week that he threw water on his smoking brakes and let them cool for a bit before forging on.

'Costa Just Kept Going'

Speaking directly to the jury, and in front of a courtroom packed with media and family of the victim and the defendant, Lugo said that Costa’s massive vehicle was prohibited on Angeles Forest Highway, but he missed that sign. And when an off-duty firefighter pulled over the seemingly struggling truck, with smoke billowing from the back, and warned that a steeper Angeles Crest was just ahead, Costa just kept going, Lugo said.

The firefighter, Juan Palomino, warned Costa and his co-driver, Jose Soares, that the rig would not fit through an upcoming tunnel and that the men should take Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road. Neither man is a native English speaker, so Palomino drew them a map.

“Smoke in any language means there’s a problem,’’ Lugo said.

“The tunnel and the road and the truck were all screaming at him,’’ she added, noting a person concerned with the welfare of others would not have proceeded.

The prosecutor went on to call Costa a liar and reiterated his testimony that Costa was unable to turn the rig around, due to space and traffic in the other lane. But when Costa, who has been a pastor for 20 years, missed the sign for Upper Big Tujunga Canyon, he turned his rig around in a picnic area and went back to take the canyon road, leading to the Crest.

If instead he’d heeded Palomino’s warning of “if it were me, I’d turn back’’ and returned to Highway 14 to take another freeway, “We wouldn’t be here,’’ Lugo said.

Closing arguments continue Wednesday morning. The jury could begin deliberating Wednesday afternoon.