Suit: Crash Victim Went Unnoticed, Died in Tow Yard

A California woman survived a drunk driver slamming into her parked van as she slept inside at 1am, but ultimately died alone, "entombed" in the crumpled vehicle, because the other driver, police, a towing company, and a tow yard failed to notice her, according to a lawsuit. Monica Liliana Cameroni de Adams' children reported her missing on Nov. 14, 2023, nine days following the crash, after she failed to respond to birthday wishes. About three weeks later, a worker at an impound lot in San Diego detected a foul smell coming from Cameroni de Adams' 2001 Honda Odyssey and called police, who found the 65-year-old's body inside.

The suit claims she died in the vehicle sometime between Nov. 5 and Dec. 6 as a result of the "willful, wanton, and malicious" actions of the city, police, Roadway Towing, and Jordan Maximilian Lopez, who pleaded guilty to DUI and was sentenced to probation with a suspended six-year prison sentence, per KNSD and the San Diego Union-Tribune. A county medical examiner's report issued in August found Lopez caused Cameroni de Adams' accidental death, per Courthouse News. The woman's children say the report shows their mother, who'd been living in her van for years, survived the crash with severe injuries, including fractures to her spine and ribs, that she would have ultimately overcome had she been discovered in a timely manner.

"It's just shocking and sad that this didn't occur," family attorney John Carpenter tells Courthouse News. "The slightest bit of inventory would reveal there was a human being inside struggling to live." The medical examiner's report noted the woman's body, found "under miscellaneous items in the vehicle's middle row," was "visible to anyone looking inside," per KNSD and the Union-Tribune. The family, which is working to acquire body camera footage of any inspections of the vehicle, accuses the defendants of acting with deliberate indifference to their mother's well-being and alleges negligent hiring, supervision, and retention by police. (More California stories.)