Yolo County prosecutors have dropped all charges against Julio Navarro Vidrio, whose truck, due to a vehicle defect, was involved in the tragic death of two-year-old Ailahni Sanchez Martinez earlier this year. According to FOX40, the district attorney's office abandoned the case after a grand jury concluded there was no criminal cause for the accident that occurred on March 16.
The Yolo County District Attorney's Office originally filed charges of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in May, after Navarro Vidrio's three-year-old child climbed into the driver's seat and the truck rolled forward, striking Ailahni near her family's taco stand. However, further investigation revealed that the truck had been left running and the child was able to shift it into gear "due to a defect in the vehicle," a statement obtained by KCRA.
Navarro Vidrio had parked the black Dodge truck outside a 76 gas station and entered the store, leaving his young child inside the running vehicle. The child managed to get out of their car seat. The case, was deliberated upon by a criminal grand jury last week which returned a "no bill," signifying the absence of probable cause to treat the crash as a criminal act. This decision paves the way for a judge at the Yolo County Courthouse to formally dismiss the charges. "When it was presented to the jury, Reisig said it returned a "no bill,'" meaning that the jurors did not find any probable cause that the crash was a criminal act, according to the KCRA.
