A man who admitted drinking whiskey before racing his Ford Mustang at 153 mph through a Tempe intersection has pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter in the deaths of Jesse Ruiz, 32, and Maria Rangel, 31, who were thrown from the vehicle when it split in half on impact. Derek Gray is scheduled to be sentenced next month.
According to AZ Family, investigators say Gray admitted to drinking and driving at 153 mph in a 35 mph zone. Gray survived the crash, while Ruiz and Rangel did not. Court records reported by Law Officer show the collision happened at approximately 1:35 a.m. on November 25, 2023, near Rural Road and Broadway Road, shortly after Tempe police officers spotted the Mustang street racing at speeds up to 100 mph.
Those court documents indicate the car reached 153 mph before going airborne, striking a power pole and two palm trees and splitting in half, ejecting both passengers. Officers had chosen not to initiate a pursuit when the driver fled, instead observing a cloud of smoke from the impact shortly after the car sped off — a decision the same records describe as consistent with police pursuit protocols meant to avoid collateral crashes in dense areas. Investigative filings cited by the outlet show Gray made spontaneous statements to officers after the wreck, admitting he had been drinking whiskey at a downtown Tempe bar concert and could not remember leaving before the crash. He was initially held on $20,000 bond following his medical release.
Who Were Jesse Ruiz and Maria Rangel
Reporting by 12News at the time revealed that Ruiz and Rangel were in a dating relationship and lived together locally before the crash. Ruiz died at the scene, while Rangel died after being rushed to a hospital, the station reported.
Public records show some inconsistency in how the driver's name was documented following the crash: archival reporting from late 2023 identified him in initial court filings as Derek Charles Franklin Glasscock, 32, of Las Vegas, while the current guilty plea is attributed to Derek Gray.
A Legal Standard Without a Vehicular Homicide Law
Arizona does not have a standalone vehicular homicide statute. Instead, fatal crashes caused by reckless driving or excessive speed are prosecuted as Class 2 felony manslaughter under Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-1103, which requires prosecutors to prove the driver consciously disregarded a substantial safety risk, as Hoodline detailed in coverage of a separate Mesa crash that killed two women. That is the legal framework under which Gray entered his guilty plea.
The crash also fits into a broader pattern of alcohol-related traffic deaths across the region. The Arizona Department of Transportation's 2024 Crash Facts report found that alcohol-related collisions caused 347 deaths statewide that year, with Maricopa County accounting for more than half of those fatalities, Hoodline previously reported in a story about a fatal I-10 crash in West Phoenix.
Tempe's Crackdown on Street Racing
The November 2023 crash became one of the incidents cited when Tempe launched its response to a deadly year on the roads. Following 25 traffic fatalities and 34 serious injuries citywide in 2023, city leadership and police launched Operation Slow Down in January 2024, eliminating warnings in favor of strict tickets for aggressive drivers and street racers, according to 12News. Municipal officials at the time pointed to street racing as a primary cause of the year's traffic deaths.
The enforcement push has continued since. Tempe City Manager Rosa Inchausti said in a January update that municipal initiatives against street racing, paired with Real Time Operation Center surveillance, contributed to a 21% reduction in violent crime in early 2025, Hoodline reported in coverage of Tempe’s 2026 outlook. Street-racing suppression remains a stated priority in the city's performance-based budgeting.
Despite those efforts, high-speed crashes involving Ford Mustangs have continued to hit the same stretch of road. Hoodline reported that a September 2025 street-racing crash on Rio Salado Parkway near Rural Road critically injured five people after a Mustang missed a turn, underscoring how the corridor has seen repeated high-speed wrecks in recent years.
