Murder charges filed in Friday night accident


Monday, September 18 2006
Unalaska, AK – A California man has been charged with murder following a Friday night van accident that left one passenger dead and another injured.
Victorio Cabrera, 47, is being held in the Unalaska jail on charges of second-degree murder, first- and third-degree assault, and driving under the influence, according to criminal complaints filed with the Third District Court in Unalaska on Saturday.
The documents state that an Unalaska public safety officer saw Cabrera driving a white Ford van that was speeding and swerving along Airport Beach Road below Bunker Hill just before midnight on Friday. When the officer turned on his lights and pursued the vehicle, Cabrera allegedly sped up to 80 miles per hour, 50 miles over the speed limit, then swerved into the guardrail just before the South Channel Bridge to Unalaska Island. The van flipped over and crashed down the embankment beyond the guardrail, coming to rest upside-down near the shore.
Cabrera and the front-seat passenger, Everisto Fontanilla, Jr., were able to crawl out of the van, but the two men who were riding in the back of the vehicle were trapped inside. One of them, Alan Fulinara, was pinned under a backseat and the roof of the van, and it took firefighters and EMTs about 45 minutes to get him out of the wreck. Fulinara was pronounced dead at about 12:50 a.m. Saturday.
The other backseat passenger, Nelwin Duran, suffered a broken leg, and was flown to Anchorage immediately for treatment. Duran was still in the critical care unit of Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage as of Monday afternoon, and was unavailable for comment. Cabrera and Fontanilla were both treated for cuts and bruises at the Iliuliuk Health Clinic in Unalaska and released.
All four men worked at Unisea Inc.'s Dutch Harbor processing plant, according to plant personnel.
The survivors told officers that just prior to the accident they had left the UniSea Sports Bar, where Cabrera had been drinking for more than five hours, according to the court documents. Cabrera's blood alcohol level was measured at .154 more than three hours after the accident.
Cabrera's bail is set at $100,000 dollars. In Alaska, the charge of second-degree murder carries a minimum sentence of 10 years' imprisonment and a maximum of 99 years.
As of Monday, small pieces of the van and shattered auto glass were still scattered across the accident site, where about twenty-five feet of guardrail had been uprooted along the roadside. Further down the hill, a bouquet of flowers in a vase has been left as a memorial.
[Correction: KIAL initially reported that Cabrera told officers that he had been drinking for five hours at the Sports Bar prior to the accident. According to court documents and the Unalaska Public Safety Department, Cabrera did tell officers that he had been drinking since 6:30 p.m. Friday, and that he had been drinking at the Sports Bar, but how much of the drinking took place at the Sports Bar wasn't specified.]