kristiana.org

October 10, 2002

2 teens killed in accident

Third occupant injured in single-vehicle collision

By Gus Thomson---Journal Staff Writer

Two 16-year-old Loomis girls are dead after a
single-vehicle car crash on a hilly section of a rural Penryn road.

Killed in the accident on Colwell Road, near its terminus with Humphrey Road, were driver Stephanie Bellotti and Kristiana
Isbell.

The girls were Del Oro High School students and teammates on the Loomis school’s Golden Eagles Marching Band color
guard.

A third occupant of the car – 16-year-old Greg Pinter of Newcastle – was treated for minor injuries.

Witnesses said the boy – a passenger in the front seat — was able to walk away from the horrific wreck. Both the driver
and Isbell – a passenger in the back seat – were ejected from the car.

Isbell was pronounced dead at the scene. Bellotti died after being taken to Sutter Roseville Medical Center. The accident
took place at 4:40 p.m. Tuesday.

The 1996 Ford Taurus that Bellotti was driving was westbound on Colwell Road, just east of Humphrey Road, when the
accident occurred. It was traveling at a “high rate of speed,” the Highway Patrol report said.

The road is a narrow stretch of two-lane blacktop, with a fenced field on one side and an embankment on the other. The car
ran off the road and traveled across the eastbound
lane, the Highway Patrol said.

Out of control, it went airborne and struck a large oak tree on the driver’s side before crashing to the ground next to the
eastbound lane.

On Wednesday morning, a tribute to Bellotti and Isbell – a small American flag – had already been stuck in a tree
encrusted with the pebbles of windshield glass embedded in
the oak when the car hit.

On the ground, still not cleaned up, were a combination o fthe minutiae of two young lives lost and evidence of a terrible
tragedy – pencils flung 20 feet from the crash site, a
chocolate bar still uneaten in its wrapper, and shattered, plastic car parts. The car parts were strewn some 30 feet from
where the car came to rest – a vivid testament to the force of the crash.

Across the road, in her front yard, Colwell Road resident Stephanie Veteran watched Placer County Sheriff’s deputies and
Penryn Volunteer Fire Department firefighters clean up the accident site — picking up debris they couldn’t recover the day
before because of the onset of darkness.

Veteran’s husband, Tom, had just returned from work and was eating a bowl of ice cream on their veranda when he heard a
“pop” Tuesday and then watched the death of two
teenage girls unfold before him.

The “pop” was followed quickly by another, as two of the tires blew out.

“He thought it was a backfire from kids hot-rodding on the road,” Veteran said.

The stretch in front of the Veteran’s home is marked by two small hills that create a “roller coaster” effect for drivers.

“They specifically come here to ‘catch air,’” Veteran said. “It’s like a roller-coaster ride.”

Veteran said the force of the initial pops and markings on the road, indicated the car went airborne on the first hill, the tires
flattened and the vehicle veered to the right into a ditch
before skidding across both lanes up the second hill and going into the air again.

Veteran said her husband watched the car sail into the tree before flipping and striking a 35 mph speed warning sign and a
boulder. The car hit the ground nose-first, she said.

After the accident, neighbors gathered that night at the scene. Veteran said she wasn’t surprised to hear that they too
have been asking Placer County to install a three-way
stop sign about 50 feet from the accident site, where Colwell Road meets Humphrey Road. Stop sign warning markers
could be painted on the road before the two hills start to slow traffic down, she said.

A 13-year resident of Colwell Road, Veteran said that instead of listening to repeated requests for a three-way stop, the
county resurfaced what had been a oil and gravel
road 1½ years ago with smoother asphalt.

“That made it more tempting,” she said. “I want stop signs. I can’t do this again.”

Sara Langford, a Del Oro student, visited the crash site Wednesday morning, remembering Bellotti as a smiling, cheerful
presence at a high school football game two weeks
ago and the two girls as part of an “inseparable” color guard.

Colwell Road’s reputation as a place to “get air” isn’t just limited to the Loomis-Penryn area, Langford said. During a
discussion in one of her classes following news of the
deaths, a classmate noted that drivers come from Sacramento to Loomis for a chance to “get air.”

Langford said the mood Wednesday at Del Oro was “solemn” in the wake of the deaths.

“We have a lot of help,” she said. “Three rooms were open where students can go for support and the counselors’ doors are
always open.”

October 10, 2002

Students’ deaths stun Del Oro High

Counselors, chaplains deployed to aid students

By Erin Gallup-Main ---Journal Staff Writer

Senior Tucker Carothers sat at the corner of Colwell and
Humphrey roads for almost an hour Thursday, thinking of his friend he will no longer see at Del Oro High School.

Carothers, like many of his classmates, experienced the loss of a friend for the first time when his teacher told his class that senior Stephanie Bellotti
and junior Kristiana Isbell died in a car accident late Tuesday afternoon.

“Stephanie and I did a huge project together in U.S. history,” he said. “I can’t believe she’s gone. She was the last person you would expect something
to happen to.”

Friends such as junior Sonja Bort remembered the good times she had with Isbell at Homecoming and grieved over the loss at the crash site and with the
many counselors at Del Oro High School Wednesday.

“They had a room where everybody was crying and we wrote letters,” Bort said.

School Counselor Marilyn Rickabaugh organized the 12 counselors and chaplains available to the 1,550 students on campus. She said one counselor
stayed in the band room all day because both girls were in the color guard.

“Students in the band live, eat and breathe with each other,” Rickabough said.

Principal Bob Christiansen said Music Director Mark Calvo was unable to speak about the students — who both joined the band as sophomores —
without breaking down.

“They were popular girls and kids aren’t supposed to die like this. It’s a tragedy,” Christiansen said. “We’ll provide our students with all the support we
can to help them get though it.”

A group of students gathered around a photo memorial of the girls at the front of the school.

Christiansen said administration and parents have tentatively scheduled a memorial service for students to say goodbye to the girls at the end of the day
Friday on campus.

But some students, such as former Del Oro student Kelley Jencks, gathered under the oak tree the car allegedly first impacted in the accident at
approximately 4:40 p.m. Tuesday. There, Jencks reminisced about the days when she played soccer with Bellotti, while Kayla Therien remembered
watching Isbell evolve into an outgoing young woman from a shy girl on the seventh-grade cheerleading squad.

“One day I was walking her home and we were talking and she started laughing and rolling on the ground,” Therien said with a tear in her eye and a
smile.

Therien said she had a drawing class with Bellotti, but didn’t go to that class Wednesday. Isbell’s neighbor, Del Oro junior Robert Morillas, said it was
hard to comprehend how one day can affect the lives of so many students.

“Yesterday, everything was OK,” Morillas said. “It’s like they’re not really gone but they are.”