Young driver sentenced three years after deadly Richland street race killed 3
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Jennifer Zamora Sanchez pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in a 2022 crash.
- Zamora Sanchez received a 45-week juvenile sentence linked to a fatal street race.
- A civil lawsuit naming both drivers and the city of Richland is set for December trial.
Jennifer Zamora Sanchez wasn’t driving around Richland looking to race someone when she pulled up next to a black Acura on George Washington Way.
But as the 16-year-old drove her BMW along side the Acura at 2:45 a.m., the other driver revved her engine — and the race began.
That was Feb. 27, 2022 and Richland investigators would later estimate that Zamora Sanchez’s BMW reached 74 mph and the Acura reached 86 mph in less than a tenth of a mile.
That’s when Jennifer Duong, 19, lost control of the Acura and slammed into a traffic light pole.
The collision at the corner of Jadwin Avenue sheared the Acura in two, killing three friends — Lianna Salazar, 19, Andres Morfin, 20, and Daniel A. Trejo, 19.
More than three years after the fatal crash, Zamora Sanchez, now 20, pleaded guilty last week to vehicular homicide in Benton-Franklin Juvenile Court.
She was sentenced to about 45 weeks, a little under a year, in a state juvenile center. Since she was under 18 at the time, she was charged as a juvenile and faced a maximum of about nine months.
Judge Jackie Shea Brown agreed to a slightly longer sentence above the normal maximum of about nine months because it was agreed to by prosecutors and the defense.
Duong, now 22, is serving 6 1/2 years at the Washington Corrections Center for Women after she pleaded guilty in 2023 to three counts of vehicular homicide.
Deadly Gway crash
In February 2022, Duong was celebrating Morfin’s 20th birthday when the four decided to go out to Denny’s near the Uptown Shopping Center in Richland.
They had finished and were heading back to Pasco. Another driver later told investigators that Duong was driving erratically so the witness said she backed off getting close to her Acura.
The witness saw Zamora Sanchez pass by and approach Duong. At Lee Boulevard, the two cars took off side by side, said the witness.
They drove less than a tenth of a mile before Duong lost control and hit the pole.
Zamora Sanchez and her passenger initially drove away, but she later told officers that she returned to make sure someone had called 911 before leaving again.
Zamora Sanchez called police and admitted to being the second driver after police posted security camera footage of her BMW on Facebook.
A civil suit is still pending against Duong, Zamora Sanchez and the city of Richland. The victims’ families filed the wrongful death suit, blaming the design of the road and accusing the drivers of being reckless. That trial is scheduled to start in December.
