DALLAS — Two North Texas teenagers are dead after being involved in a Friday night car crash that also left three of their friends seriously injured.
Family members told WFAA that Crystal Pineda, 16, and Andres Pineda, 15, who are brother and sister, died in a two-vehicle crash that Dallas police responded to just after 9 p.m. in the 13900 block of Esperanza Road, near Spring Valley and Coit roads.
Crystal and Andres were on their way with three friends to get dinner, according to their cousin Nancy Pineda. When the crash happened, Pineda said the other car had crossed over the double-yellow lines and hit the teenagers' vehicle head-on.
"They were going literally just down the street to go get some tacos," Nancy Pineda said. "They were going for dinner, and they didn't make it."
On Saturday, family members and friends were out at the site of the crash, placing flowers, pictures and mementos in remembrance of Crystal and Andres.
Their stepmom, Daniela Martinez, was out there as well, saying that she found out about the crash when the kids' mom called her from the scene.
"I couldn't really understand what she was saying, so I just dropped everything that I was doing," Martinez said. "I didn't even know where the car accident happened, I just knew that I had to drive out here."
When she got there, Martinez said Crystal was already pronounced dead on the scene while Andres had been transported to a hospital. Martinez and her family later found out he died while in the hospital.
"I just wish all this were a nightmare," Martinez said. "They were so young. They had a life ahead of them. They were good kids."
Casandra Torres was best friends with Crystal, saying she was a really fun person to be around.
"Crystal, she was funny," Torres said. "She would be there for you whenever you needed her."
"Really smart, funny, caring, loving kids that didn't cause any problems," Nancy Pineda said about both Crystal and Andres.
Martinez said she hopes the man who hit their car comes forward soon.
"It hurts just to know that the guy... he just left," Martinez said. "He left them there hopeless. Lifeless. They were just kids. They were barely even alive. If he's out there, he could do it again. Next time, it could be somebody else's kids, somebody's mother, somebody's husband."
Saturday night, Dallas police released a video of the suspect who hit the Pinedas' car, showing a man in a green shirt driving a truck with the license plate number RHF3302.
On Sunday, police identified the suspect they're looking for as Faustino Membreno Rivera.
"We need justice for those two little kids that had a whole future, a whole life, and now it's taken away by the person," Nancy Pineda said. "For him to come up and own his own responsibility because if he did it once, what shows you that he's not going to do it again."
The family set up a GoFundMe for Crystal and Andres Pineda's funeral arrangements that you can find here.