MN- Illegal Woman kills kids on bus

Heartbreaking for the parents of these kids.


Van driver in fatal Cottonwood bus crash is identified
By CHAO XIONG, PAM LOUWAGIE and CURT BROWN, Star Tribune
February 25, 2008
MARSHALL, MINN. - The woman in the Lyon County jail facing charges in last week's deaths of four children is a 24-year-old from Guatemala who is in the United States illegally and had been using an alias, according to immigration officials.
They said Monday that Olga Marina Franco has been using the fake name of Alianiss Nunez Morales.
The woman was charged Friday in Lyon County District Court with four counts of criminal vehicular homicide, driving without a license and running a stop sign.
That Franco's fingerprints didn't show up in U.S. immigration databases "would indicate she had not yet in any way been encountered by immigration officials," ICE agents or citizenship workers, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok, in a telephone interview from Dallas.
Immigration authorities wouldn't say precisely how they figured out Franco's identity.
During their investigation after last Tuesday's crash, ICE officials said they showed a photograph to relatives of an Alianiss Morales in Puerto Rico. The people there said she wasn't the same person as woman being jailed in Marshall.
Franco initially told investigators she was from Mexico.
Customs officials have placed a detainer on Franco, meaning that if she is released from the Lyon County jail for any reason, she will be turned over to federal authorities to face deportation.
A Marshall resident who said he is a cousin of Franco's said family members don't know how Franco ended up with the false identity, adding: "It was very hard for us to sustain that lie."
Relatives said Franco looked shocked and scared in the hospital and in the courthouse after the crash, said the cousin.
The cousin added that Franco was "goodhearted."
"Just like everybody else, she came to this country for the American Dream ... all those dreams are shattered with this," the cousin said.
The cousin said that neither he nor other relatives wanted to identify themselves for fear their children might be harassed.
Franco moved to the United States three or four years ago, briefly living in Virginia before coming to live with friends in Montevideo, Minn., and then moving in with cousins in Marshall, the cousin said.
But Franco left Marshall to live in Willmar and "ended up hanging out with the wrong people," the cousin said. She worked for several months at the Jennie-O plant in Willmar before taking a job in Cottonwood, which is about 140 miles west of the Twin Cities. Franco had told relatives that she'd recently moved to the town of Minneota with her boyfriend, whom they didn't know, to be closer to her job with a cabinet maker in Cottonwood.
Franco said the boyfriend was in the van when the crash took place but fled the scene, leaving her pinned inside with a broken leg, according to the cousin.
Investigators have heard rumors that a man was in the van with Franco, but the investigation and interviews so far have not supported that, said Lt. Brian West of the Minnesota State Patrol.
Funerals and politics
Lakeview School in Cottonwood was closed Monday as brothers Jesse and Hunter Javens were buried. Jesse was 13 and Hunter, who had a twin sister, would have turned 10 Monday.
Services were held Sunday for Emilee Olson, 9, and are scheduled at 2 p.m. Thursday at the school for Reed Stevens, 12.
"We keep praying for those families," Franco's cousin said. "I've got my own kids too. They ride buses to school, too."
Of the 14 people injured in the crash, five remain hospitalized, including pickup driver James Hancock, who has been upgraded to good condition at a Sioux Falls, S.D., hospital.
Hancock said he saw Franco's van go through the stop sign and strike the bus, which tipped over on to his pickup. Two other children are listed in good condition and two others are in fair condition.
Public outcry from around the state and country thrust the local tragedy into the heated national debate over illegal immigration.
In Washington, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., sent a letter to immigration officials, asking why no action was taken when Franco (using Morales' name) was convicted in 2006 of driving without a license. She was driving erratically and wound up on the lawn of a Montevideo home.
Calls for community 'outrage'
E-mails and phone calls from across the state and country began pouring into the offices of area officials and of the Marshall Independent, the area's daily newspaper,.
"It's a brewing fire storm," said Minnesota House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall. "The immigration issue has heated enormously over this."
The Independent ran a letter to the editor Monday from a city council member in South Carolina who wrote, "I hope your community gets outraged. ... As long as we cater and pander to these people the more tragedies we are going to continue to read about throughout this country."
Editor Dana Yost said his newspaper has received 100 or so e-mails and some have been "very mean-spirited. There hasn't been a middle ground."
Seifert said his office has received up to four dozen e-mails and calls about immigration since the accident. Sen. Dennis Frederickson, R-New Ulm, said he's received about two dozen e-mails.
U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's office received a number of calls and e-mails from Minnesotans who want the government to "get serious about addressing our immigration system," according to his press secretary, LeRoy Coleman.
Lawmakers have so far concentrated on offering their condolences to family members of the dead and injured, and reiterating the need to enforce existing immigration laws.
Residents of Marshall and Cottonwood, where many residents are close to the victims, have offered differing views about Franco's immigrant status.
"Boy, I was mad," said Randy Seiler, a life-long Marshall resident. "I was mad, honestly. There is no control anymore on what's going on. There's going to be some tension."
As she left the memorial service for the Javens brothers at Lakeview School, Lisa Coil of Montevideo said: "It doesn't matter who [Franco] is, whether she's illegal or not. She still killed four kids."
At Mike's Cafe in Marshall on Monday, the morning's discussion turned philosophical among a circle of old friends.
Franco's immigrant status is a topic of conversation, they said, adding that local reactions seemed less heated than those from outside the area.
"If she was an American citizen without a license -- we have a lot of those -- would it be more tragic?" said Tom Wyffels of Marshall. "It doesn't make any difference to me if you're killed by an American with a license or a non-American without a license."