Anthony Baserra
VENTURA COUNTY — When it rains, it pours.
That may well be the feeling of 39-year-old El Monte resident Anthony Beserra, who was behind the wheel of his pickup truck on the afternoon of March 10th, driving down the driveway of his parent’s Piru residence when he struck and killed his three-year-old daughter Rochelle, and was arrested the same day on multiple weapons charges.
The tragedy began that afternoon, when, according to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Capt. Garo Kuredjian, the child was outside the perimeter of the home’s fenced yard and Beserra was driving off to work.
The girl’s mother, 30-year-old Destiny Aguilar, discovered the child in the driveway and soon realized that she had been seriously injured.
Beserra and Aguilar then attempted to transport the child to nearby Fillmore in an effort to get medical attention, but their truck “became disabled just east of Fillmore,” whereupon they contacted “a nearby relative who then drove them to the Fillmore fire station,” where the child was noted to be “in respiratory and cardiac arrest.” She was immediately transported to Ventura County Medical Center, where she died.
During the course of the ensuing investigation into the circumstances of the fatal accident, Beserra’s pickup truck was found to contain multiple illegal weapons, whereupon he was arrested and transported to Ventura County Jail and booked on charges of “being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition, possession of a high-capacity magazine, and transporting a machine gun,” with his bail set at $60,000.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
