Houston Chronicle

Date: Fri 04/27/2007

Section: B Page: 3 Edition: 3 STAR

Owners tried to report stolen car in fatal pursuit / They say police did not respond until 6 hours later, a short time before the tragic wreck

By ROSANNA RUIZ, DALE LEZON Staff

Paul Kiddy awoke before dawn Tuesday and noticed his car had been stolen.

His wife called 911 at 4:40 a.m. to report the teal, 1993 Chevrolet Caprice Classic was gone. But after what the couple describe as a series of miscommunications, a police officer did not show up at their apartment door until six hours later.

Within an hour after that, a 24-year-old mother of two would be killed during a police pursuit of Kiddy's stolen car.

Kiddy and his wife can't help but think that if police had responded sooner, Rikki Danielle Sanchez would not have been stopped at the corner of Teaneck and Astoria, and a tragedy might have been avoided.

In addition to the criminal investigation, Houston police internal affairs investigators are looking into whether any department policies - from the time the report was made until the chase concluded - were violated, spokesman Sgt. Nate McDuell said.

A Houston Police Department pursuit review committee led by Assistant Chief Kirk Munden will also review the chase next month.

Dennis Lamont Evans, 24, charged with felony murder in the wreck and possession of a controlled substance, appeared Thursday in court with his left arm in a sling and what appeared to be a bruise on his cheek. He is being held on bail totaling $125,000.

Ruling for case to proceed

With the dead woman's father, Leo Rudd, looking on, state District Judge Brock Thomas ruled that prosecutors had enough evidence to go forward with the case.

On Tuesday morning, Kiddy and his wife, Olivia Serenil, awoke at their regular hour.

"When I first seen it was stole," Kiddy, a 24-year-old Houston mechanic, said of his car, "the only thing I could think of was either someone was hating on me or joyriding."

Serenil said she called 911, but an operator gave her another HPD telephone number to make the report. She insists she was given an incorrect number and made even more calls to the emergency line.

No one responded until 6:40 that morning, Serenil said, but she had already left for work. Her husband provided the caller with her work phone number.

Serenil got a call there around 10:40 a.m, about the same time an HPD officer showed up at the couple's apartment.

It wasn't long after a broadcast was made over the police radio before an HPD patrol officer spotted the stolen Chevy near Beamer and Dixie Farm Road. About 11:15 a.m., two police cruisers tried to box the car in at a traffic light at that intersection.

Chase was `going 50-plus'

The driver was able to weave around the cars and peel away, McDuell said.The officers pursued the stolen car along the streets of the southeast Houston neighborhood. Police later said the pursuit reached speeds of only about 40 mph, but witnesses told the Houston Chronicle much higher speeds were involved.

Kiddy said he watched as the chase sailed by his apartment on Algonquin near Scarsdale. "They were going 50-plus," Kiddy said.

The chase ended at 11:23 a.m. when the Caprice plowed into Sanchez's four-door Nissan truck. Sanchez died instantly, police said. No one inside the home was injured.

Sanchez's father said his daughter was on her way to take an exam at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She was in her third year and wanted to one day study law. She had just stopped to visit her 4-year-old daughter at the baby sitter's house, he said.

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