SAN MATEO – The San Mateo County District Attorney’s office plan to further investigate the driver behind the wheel of the deadly limousine fire, which killed five Filipino women, after a newspaper reported that he was on the phone arguing with his estranged wife, while the passengers inside were pleading for help.
In a story posted on Sunday, Rachel “Raquel” Hernandez-Brown told San Jose Mercury News that her husband (limo driver Orville Brown) was on the phone arguing with her, right before the deadly fire erupted from the vehicle.
On May 4, nine Filipino women were inside a Lincoln Town Car driven by Brown, on their way to celebrate a bridal shower in San Francisco before the fire broke out on the San Mateo Bridge.
Five died in the fire including the bride-to-be, Neriza Fojas, who was preparing for her upcoming marriage ceremony in the Philippines. Four women managed to escape.
Brown’s wife claims that her limo driver husband turned up the music’s volume inside the car so the passengers couldn’t hear their shouting match.
“The music was really loud. And I kept yelling, ‘I can’t hear you. Turn it down,’ “ she said to San Jose Mercury News.
“I said, ‘You’re not paying attention. You know, like, get off the phone. Stop calling me,’” she remembered telling him. “I’d hate to have a limo driver like you.”
San Mateo County District Attorney Chief Deputy Karen Guidotti told the newspaper she plans to further investigate Raquel Brown’s claim.
“We need to follow up on this,” Guidotti told the newspaper. Police had not contacted Raquel as part of the investigation of Brown, prior to the newspaper’s expose.
The new revelation raises questions as to whether Brown was too distracted to fully help the passengers inside his vehicle.
It also helps bolster the tearful claim of one of the survivors, Nelia Arellano, who told a Bay Area news station a few days after the fire that Brown “didn’t do anything” to help the women trapped inside the car.
Arellano was one of the five women who managed to shimmy through the dividing partition to escape the fire.
“Open the door, open the door,” Arellano told ABC News affiliate KGO-TV. “He didn’t do anything.”
“I even ask[ed] him, ‘Help me, help me,’ because I brought out my head from that compartment and said, ‘Help me,’ so I could squeeze myself over there and slide myself.”
Brown managed to escape. The San Jose Mercury New reports Brown shot a cell phone video of the deadly fire and sent it along with a text to his wife.
“Remember this could off put me in the ground. Think about it n Pray bfr u lay down. I’m praying for all ya’ll. love u Mrs. BROWN.”
When contacted about the new allegation, Brown declined to speak to San Jose Mercury News.
Brown’s brother, Lewis Brown (an attorney based in Vallejo) told NBC that he was not on the phone.
The California Highway Patrol is also looking into the new allegations. The CHP is expected to release its report on the cause of the fire soon.
(www.asianjournal.com)
(LA Midweek July 24-26, 2013 Sec A pg.1)
