Last Updated on March 31, 2021 by CCAR Staff
A man who caused a 2018 wrong-way collision on an Arizona freeway that killed three Riverside women has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, La Paz County Superior Court records show.
Dana Michael Cavanaugh, 51, of Utah, was placed into the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections after his sentencing on March 26.
Cavanaugh had been charged with three counts of second-degree murder, but he pleaded guilty to a single count in October in the deaths of Riverside County Deputy Probation Officer Christine Bradbury, 31; her mother, restaurant employee Susan Bradbury, 55; and Caitlin Cascella, 31, an English teacher at Heritage High in Menifee. Christine Bradbury and Cascella were close friends.
The crash happened at about 10:50 a.m. on March 24, 2018. Cavanaugh entered the westbound 10 Freeway in Quartzite via an exit ramp, driving east, police said. After driving about 500 feet, he struck a car carrying the women, who were returning from watching Angels spring training games in the Phoenix area.
Riverside resident Linda Valenzuela, 54, the sister of Susan Bradbury and aunt of Christine Bradbury, said the families believe that 13 years was not enough jail time.
“It should be three people that he got (sentenced for) and not just one,” Valenzuela said in an interview Wednesday, March 31.
Rachel Shackelford, the La Paz deputy county attorney who prosecuted the case, had previously said that a plea meant that she didn’t have to risk taking the case to a jury, and it closed out a case that had gone slowly, partly because one of Cavanaugh’s attorneys had died.
Shackelford also said Cavanaugh was under the influence at the time of the crash. He was not charged with that crime, however.
Valenzuela made a victim impact statement on behalf of the families at the sentencing.
“I told them that Susan was my role model. I talked about how close our family was and how my two children and her two children were more like siblings than cousins,” Valenzuela said. “It’s a terrible tragedy that three people went because of one mistake a person made.”
Cavanaugh expressed remorse for his actions in a statement to the court, Valenzuela said.
“I honestly think he meant everything he said. … But his family wanted to paint him out like he was a saint,” she said.
