Man charged with wrecking car containing 4-year-old son, killing woman, while speeding drunk through Hayward

HAYWARD — Prosecutors have charged a man with crashing his car while driving drunk through city streets, killing a 20-year-old woman, injuring his 4-year-old son and sending two others to the hospital, one with a serious brain injury.

Armando Hernandez-Benitez, 20, was charged with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and multiple counts of drunk driving in the March 7 crash. Authorities say he reached speeds of 88 miles per hour, with a blood/alcohol level nearly three times the legal limit, then crashed into another car and hit multiple stationary objects on Hayward Boulevard. It occurred at around 10 p.m. that night.

Elizabeth Fuentes, 20, a passenger in the car, was killed. Hernandez-Benitez’s 4-year-old son was seriously injured and required 12 staples to treat three cuts on his head. An 18-year-old woman, also a passenger, was hospitalized with a serious brain injury that caused her to “become comatose … and suffer paralysis,” according to the criminal complaint. Hernandez-Benitez was also briefly hospitalized, and a person in the other vehicle was injured, but not seriously, authorities said.

The car Hernandez-Benitez struck was pushed into another vehicle, but that driver wasn’t hurt, according to police. Hernandez-Benitez’s vehicle came to a rest about 225 feet from the site of the initial impact.

He was arrested after the the crash but then released from jail, records show. He is not in custody and has not yet had his first court appearance, according to public records. The charges were filed on Dec. 10.

An online fundraiser for Fuentes describes her as “a loving sister, cousin, niece, aunt and most importantly daughter.”

“She grew up a Hayward native, supported by her dad, mother, older brother and sisters, and as a older sister herself for her younger siblings who would always come to her with open arms,” the fundraiser says.