She Was Driving the Wrong Way Down a Los Angeles Street. A City Bus Was Coming the Other Way.

Tuesday evening in Chatsworth looked like any other rush hour. A Metro bus was moving through the intersection of Nordhoff Street and De Soto Avenue, carrying riders on their way home from work. Gage Weida, 31, was one of them. So was Daniel Castillo, 46. Neither man made it off that bus alive.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, a gray 2004 Ford Expedition was traveling southbound in the northbound lanes of De Soto Avenue — the wrong way down the street — when it ran a red light at Nordhoff and collided with the side of the bus at high speed. The impact fully ejected one passenger and partially ejected another, LAPD said. Six other people on board were injured.

LAPD identified the driver as Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, of Simi Valley. She was booked Wednesday morning on suspicion of two counts of murder, with bail set at $4.03 million. That is where the case currently stands: Rios has been arrested and faces two suspected murder counts, not a conviction. The matter is now being reviewed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, which will determine what charges, if any, are formally filed. Investigators have not said why the SUV was traveling against traffic, and no official determination on intoxication, intent, or motive has been released.

Weida's girlfriend of nearly a decade, Autumn Reiff, described him afterward in devastated, personal terms: "We were so young and in love, my sugar muffin, my boo, my other half..." Castillo's family remembered him as someone who brought, in their words, laughter and light into every room he entered.

While crews were still working the crash site, a separate and unrelated tragedy unfolded nearby. Around 6:55 p.m. — roughly two hours after the bus collision — a news helicopter providing aerial coverage of the crash for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 went down about a mile and a half away. The Eurocopter AS 350 B2, operated by Angel City Air, crashed and killed photojournalist Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw, both aboard, along with a bystander on the ground, 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia.

The two incidents happened in the same area on the same evening, but nothing connects them beyond that. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into the helicopter crash, and no cause has been determined. Early audio recordings reportedly captured sounds consistent with a change in engine speed, but investigators have been clear that a preliminary report is still weeks away. There is no indication the bus collision caused or contributed to the helicopter going down.

LAPD issued a statement extending condolences to the families of everyone lost across both incidents that evening. Between the bus crash and the helicopter crash, five people died within the same stretch of Chatsworth in the space of a few hours — a toll that turned one traffic collision into one of the heaviest nights the San Fernando Valley has had in recent memory.

For now, Rios remains in custody on bail, her case awaiting the District Attorney's formal review. The NTSB's investigation into the helicopter crash is expected to take weeks before even a preliminary report is released. Both cases are still open, and both are still developing.