A California man was convicted Friday of murder for a 2020 incident in which he rammed his car into a 2002 Toyota Prius carrying six teenage pranksters, three of whom died.
At around 10:15 p.m. on Jan 19., 2020, 13-year-old Joshua Ivascu exited the Prius on a dare and rang the doorbell of Anurag Chandra’s house. After opening the door, the teen mooned Chandra and ran back to the car, completing the prank known as a “ding-dong ditch.”
Chandra said he was “extremely, extremely mad” and got into his own car, a 2019 Infiniti Q50, and drove after them, hitting speeds of 99 mph before intentionally ramming the Prius.
The driver of the Prius, then-18-year-old Sergio Campusano, lost control and struck a tree, thereby killing 16-year-old Drake Ruiz, Daniel Hawkins and Jacob Ivascu.
Mr. Campusano, along with then-13-year-old passengers Joshua Hawkins and Jacob Ivascu, survived the crash. Joshua Hawkins and Jacob Ivascu are the younger brothers of two of the deceased victims.
“He just got next to me and I was confused. What is he going to do? I just saw him ram his car into my back. And I whipped into my window and I blacked out and then I remember I woke up on the floor — I don’t remember how I got there. I was shaking,” Mr. Campusano told KNBC-TV, a Los Angeles NBC affiliate.
Chandra said that he did not intend to hit the other vehicle and that he kept driving away from the scene because he did not realize anyone was injured. Chandra also said he had drunk 12 beers in the span of three hours before the incident.
Home security footage showing Chandra driving in a straight line and using turn signals led prosecutors to question whether he had drunk anything at all.
Chandra returned home after the crash and passed out. He called 911 hours later, having seen people outside his house and not mentioning the doorbell incident.
The people outside Chandra’s residence were California Highway Patrol officers who had found the license plate of his Infiniti at the scene of the collision.
Chandra was convicted of three counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. He faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced on July 14, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper.
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