A known member of an Orange County white supremacist gang has been charged with murder in connection with a high-speed police chase crash that killed a Vietnamese tourist and badly hurt two others, the police said Thursday.
A home on the 18000 block of Arches Court was reported to have been set on fire around 7:30 p.m. on December 2. Officers from the Fountain Valley Police Department responded.
A news statement from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office says that the suspect, Timothy Cole, 43, of Huntington Beach, used an accelerant to light a bush on fire outside the home of his sister’s fiancé.
The police said, “The fire spread to the structure of the home and covered the bush in flames.”
Authorities say Cole started the fire as a way to get custody of his children after his sister called child protection services.
The fire that spread to the porch was put out by the people living in the house with the help of a friend.
After two hours, the 43-year-old was seen getting into his white Dodge Ram pickup truck, which was parked near the house. Cole didn’t stop when cops tried to stop him for speeding, so they chased him for 1.5 miles.
Just before 11 p.m., Cole went almost 90 miles per hour through a red light at the corner of Ellis Avenue and Magnolia Street. He hit a BMW X3 and his car flipped over.
“Hong Ngoc Nguyen, who was visiting from Vietnam and was 25 years old, was killed while riding in the backseat,” the news release said. It was reported that the BMW driver broke her back and pelvis and her passenger broke her arm.
Cole was put in jail without a fight and taken to a trauma center in Long Beach.
The 43-year-old man, who has been fined six times before, has been charged with:
- murder with a weapon
- A crime count of escaping a police officer and killing someone
- Two crime counts of escaping a police officer and hurting someone seriously
- Arson is a crime
Adding an accelerant to a felony charge of burning
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said, “No one could have known that a stranger would set off a chain of events that would turn Miss Nguyen’s American vacation into an American nightmare.” “There are no words to describe how heartbroken I am about the death of a young woman who was in the way of someone who had no respect for life.”
Cole could get up to 70 years to life in a state jail if he is found guilty as charged. He is set to show up in court in Orange County on December 20.
