Last Updated on January 31, 2018 by CCAR Staff
When Isaiah Bustamante wanted to have a Coke, a forbidden treat at his house, he knew exactly who to call: Grandma Chelly.
“She would be like, ‘Here, don’t tell your mom,’ ” said the 11-year-old, eliciting chuckles from his mother, uncle and aunts at a Wednesday press conference about his grandma.
“My mom wouldn’t like it,” he said shooting a quick, cautious glance toward his mother, Daisy Bustamante. “When she would give me candy, we would go to the store and she would buy my candy because she said I would give her puppy dog eyes.”
But on Sunday, Jan. 28, Isaiah lost his grandmother, Celia Cardona, 55, and his family lost their matriarch when she was struck and killed by a driver who left before paramedics and Rialto police could arrive.
“My mom was my rock,” said a tearful Samantha Jones, 18, of Fontana, during the press conference Wednesday, which would have marked Cardona’s 56th birthday. “She was my best friend … She’s always here with us, but I just don’t understand how someone can live with themselves. … How can you sleep at night?”
When Cardona’s oldest son, Leobardo Bustamante, received the call from his father late Sunday night telling him his mother had died, he said he was unclear on what had happened, so he went to his mother’s home on Lilac Avenue.
There he came face-to-face with the crime scene and the reality of how his mother had died.
“I wanted to see with my own two eyes,” he said.
The family remembered a hard-working woman who worked two housekeeping jobs to care for her family which also includes a 15-year-old son.
Cardona had just left Daisy Bustamante’s home and was heading home when she was struck, the family said.
The mother and daughter lived only a short distance from each other, Daisy Bustamante said, adding they were all extremely close.
According to police, Cardona was hit in the 600 block of Lilac Avenue near Merrill Avenue while she was crossing the street outside a crosswalk.
Investigators believe it was a dark-colored 2004 to 2007 BMW 5 Series that sustained front-end damage, based on the debris left at the scene.
Several of the investigators who are handling the search for the driver were at the press conference, and after it concluded, they took the time to shake every family member’s hand and offered their condolences.
“We’ll do everything we can to find the person,” said one officer to Isaiah, to which the boy responded: “When you find him, put the handcuffs on real tight.”
Authorities are currently scouring the neighborhood, searching for surveillance footage from the scene, and ask anyone who may have information to come forward and call 909-820-2550.
“We just want to know who did this,” Daisy Bustamante said. “She’s leaving behind all of us and it’s not fair that this person is going on acting like everything is OK. He took something very precious from us.”
