DUI driver charged with murder

April 17, 2016
Gino Lopez

Gino Lopez

The 21-year-old driver of a car involved in a fatal collision Friday on the Cuesta Grade has been charged with murder. One person died and four were injured in the three car accident.

At about 8:30 p.m., Gino Lopez, 21, was speeding southbound on Highway 101 when he crashed into a tractor-trailer and then the guardrail. Geneva Vanbeurd, 62, of San Luis Obispo then drove his Volvo into the Honda. The impact caused a 16-year-old to be ejected from Lopez’s’s car.

The teen died at the scene.

Lopez was booked into the San Luis Obispo County Jail on charges of manslaughter, murder, DUI and driving on a suspended license. His bail is set at $25,000.


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Once again we see a cry out for harsher punishments to those who drink and drive, yet there is a gloss over at recognizing the reality that there is neither a cure all or one size fits all, directive, to escape the clutches of an emotional base contingency to satisfy the void shared by the surviving relations left tragically behind. We fail to deter the capital entrenched campaigning that leaps all boundaries of decency in promoting the high life of alcohol consumption, socially accepted, legally sold and consumed, despite the risk to reality of lethal consequences without the beneficiary of profit being held accountable for the consequences, derived from the foreseeable digress, compounded by investors in strive for profit, no matter the cost in human life. Until there is less promotion in punishing survivors, realizing affliction, addiction, and dereliction in an effort to balance affordable means of corrective measures to long term progression in understanding, we are bound to make criminals in our passive considerations to the privilege adduced…Point being…it isn’t the lack of DUI laws in terms of severity that is controlling in the deaths related to alcohol each year, but one may infer it is in the misguided acceptance of an alcohol based social plurality, second to none…Murder has now been inclusive of all wrongs causing death, rather than defined by all factors relative to point in time…reality is there are more players than the one ultimately at the wheel…my guess is we have to point plainly at one , just to live with our surpassing these awful deaths..an abstraction to justice behind the curtain of thirst…mind blather….


The murder charge may not hold up since there were two drivers involved in this young woman’s death. The question is whether she died in the original crash or after being ejected from the car and the autopsy has not yet been done.


Well sadly, this preventable event has forever changed the lives of many people.


People need to be made to atone for their choices. I do not think a 21 year old should be made to spend the rest of his life in prison. In all honesty, his brain is not done fully developing, but he DOES need to spend quite a bit of time in prison, and he does need to do something meaningful while there. The first thing this young man needs to do is do hard labor and work to pay the cost of his victim’s funeral.


The family who lost a child. Oh my goodness. I cannot even imagine their pain. I just can’t.


I heard this young man had a prior DUI charge. Make sense now why he was charged with murder.


No seat belt once again. :>(


I drive the grade daily and there’s no doubt it’s already dangerous without someone speeding downhill drunk. Bail set at $25K when there are injuries and death involved, along with the driver having a suspended license is just ludicrous. I’m sorry , but this guy should still be in jail with no bail set at all.


Bail is not a punishment. It is designed to insure that the defendant will return to court when required. There are a number of factors including the defendant having long term residency, local family ties, a job/enrolled full time in school, minor children, previous arrests/convictions, probation violations or fleeing the jurisdiction of a court, warrants,etc…