The Maldonado family has only ever lived life one way: together.
For Crystal Maldonado it was always like this, “[Our] Children, they just loved being at home and they loved being with us. “It was always Crystal and her husband Manuel, along with their children Alyssa, Brenden, Cailyn and Devin.
Everything changed for the family on a late July morning when a fatal collision near 71st Avenue and Thomas Road killed 48-year-old Manuel “Aaron” Maldonado.
Just a few days before Maldonado’s 49th birthday, the family remained incomplete. They now hope that the criminal justice system will provide some form of justice after the Phoenix police arrest the man suspected of causing the accident.
“I felt in my heart that something was wrong”
Maldonado texted his wife at 9:54 am on July 30th that he was on his way home from work, but after a while she began to worry.
She called him and texted him several times, but got no answer, so she decided to look for him herself.
“I felt in my heart that something was wrong.”
Since he drove the same route to work every day, it was easiest to know where to go. However, as she approached the intersection, she found that the road was closed due to an accident.
According to arrest documents, 27-year-old Jovanny Pierce Bencomo was driving a brown Chevy Tahoe west on Thomas Road at around 9:58 a.m. when he collided with the rear of a 2016 Nissan Sentra, which was also heading west.
The force of the collision caused the Nissan Sentra to collide with a 2001 Nissan Frontier headed in the same direction. This caused the Nissan Frontier to overturn several times before landing on the passenger side in the westbound lanes.
When Crystal got to the scene, she had difficulty identifying which vehicles were involved in the collision. She approached the area and asked a police officer if he could confirm that a blue Nissan pickup was one of them. He has.
Immediately after this interview, a social worker called her and told her that her husband was in extremely critical condition in the hospital. The Frontier driver, who suffered serious injuries and later died in hospital, was identified by police as Maldonado.
A man and a woman, passengers on the Nissan Sentra, were both slightly injured and rushed to hospital, according to arrest documents.
Bencomo fled the scene without stopping or providing assistance to those involved in the collision, and before the police could get to the scene, the arrest documents said. However, the police were able to locate the vehicle and the driver through video surveillance from a nearby store.
On Wednesday, Phoenix police responded to an apartment near Weldon Avenue. A file search was carried out to confirm that Bencomo’s address and the registration of the Chevy Tahoe matched the address.
On Thursday, an eyewitness who remained on site after the collision was able to identify Bencomo from a photo constellation. Bencomo was then arrested and taken to police headquarters, according to arrest documents.
During a police interview, Bencomo stated several times that he did not know what was going on and that he just wanted to go home and sleep. He told police that his mother owned the Chevy Tahoe and that he sometimes drove it. Bencomo never denied being involved in the fatal collision, but continued to state, according to arrest documents, that he did not know.
Bencomo is being held without bail and, in three cases, is not required to be at the site of an accident which, according to arrest documents, resulted in death or injury.
A preliminary hearing for Bencomo is scheduled for August 16, according to arrest documents.
A man with a “smile to share”
Crystal and Maldonado have been inseparable since 1993 when they drove through the Metrocenter Mall together on their first date. They married in September 1998 and since then Crystal has never met Maldonado as anything other than a family man.
He was a “very practical” father and husband. He would spend his afternoons training football or basketball for his sons’ teams, she said.
If anyone asked which 21-year-old son would like to celebrate his birthday with his parents in Las Vegas, the answer was simple: the Maldonado kids would.
They always had the most fun when they were together – as a group of six. That’s exactly the kind of family they were, said Crystal.
But what excited the couple most was the future. “We were just looking forward to being together and [were] I am excited to see what our children would grow up to be. ”
Over a Thursday dinner, the Maldonado family spent their loved one’s 49th birthday telling each other stories about the most important man in their lives.
“He loved making people laugh and always had a smile to share with his fellow human beings. He was also a great friend to many, anyone would have been blessed to have him as a friend,” she said.
Maldonado’s birthday party didn’t end badly.
According to a Facebook post that Crystal posted on Thursday, her husband received the best birthday present ever: “You have my husband’s killer,” she wrote.
Reach current reporter Amaris Encinas at amaris.encinas@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @amarisencinas.
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