A Pinole man charged with murder in a fiery wrong-way crash on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge last year pleaded not guilty last month, and his attorney is now pushing back hard on the charge itself, calling it “rather draconian.” Pedro Abril-Garcia, whom the seed report lists as 41 years old, is accused of driving drunk when his Range Rover slammed head-on into a Honda Civic, killing its driver.
Contra Costa prosecutors allege Abril-Garcia was intoxicated when he caused the wrong-way crash, according to the seed report from The Mercury News. Police said that at about 1:40 a.m. on August 12, 2025, Abril-Garcia entered the bridge traveling westbound in the eastbound lanes before his Range Rover struck the Civic. A separate account from that night, reported by The Mercury News at the time, described the fiery head-on wreck happening around 1:40 a.m. on Interstate 580 just east of the bridge, with the California Highway Patrol saying the Range Rover was driving westbound in the eastbound far left lane.
The crash killed the Civic’s driver, identified by that same outlet as 29-year-old Alejandro Cruzrenderos of Petaluma; the Marin Independent Journal spelled his name Cruz Renderos in its own report, which said Richmond firefighters pronounced him dead at the scene. The Independent Journal also reported the other driver as Pedro Abril Garcia, 40, of Pinole — a year younger than the age given in the newer seed report. The CHP said an initial investigation indicated that drugs or alcohol may have been a factor, and the crash shut down eastbound access to the bridge for about three and a half hours.
Severe Injuries and a Fundraiser
Abril-Garcia was hospitalized with severe injuries after the crash, according to the seed report, and his attorney, Michael Cardoza, said his client still has difficulty walking. An online fundraiser has since raised more than $4,000 to support Abril-Garcia, per the same seed account. He was held to answer following a preliminary hearing in September, and court records show he pleaded not guilty on October 13.
Cardoza told the paper that he and prosecutors are negotiating a resolution, framing the dispute less around guilt than around punishment. “We’re not minimizing the loss in this case. This is a tragedy, not a murder,” Cardoza said, according to the seed report. He added that the central issue was the punishment his client would receive, and he called the second-degree murder charge “rather draconian.”
The seed report also notes that Abril-Garcia has prior drunk-driving convictions in Alameda County dating to 2009 and 2010, a detail prosecutors have cited in building the case against him.
How California Courts Treat DUI Deaths as Murder
Charging a fatal DUI as murder rather than a lesser offense is not new in the Bay Area. In April 2018, Contra Costa prosecutors charged Jose Amaya-Rivera and Bo Steven Robledo with murder and DUI counts in separate fatal crashes, and a deputy district attorney told SFGate at the time that the office had recently taken a more aggressive stance on pursuing murder charges in fatal DUI cases, while stressing that each case had to be considered individually.
A more recent example played out in Sacramento, where a jury found Richard Newman guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Nathan Thomas, according to KCRA. The district attorney’s office said Newman, then 33, ran a red light while driving 55 mph and hit Thomas’ vehicle; Thomas died of his injuries on September 11, 2025. Under California Penal Code Section 190, a conviction for second-degree murder generally carries a sentence of 15 years to life in state prison, though the statute includes exceptions that can apply depending on the circumstances of a case.
Statewide, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities have ticked downward in recent years — decreasing about 4.5 percent, from 1,419 in 2022 to 1,355 in 2023, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety, which defines those fatalities as crashes involving a driver or motorcycle rider with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher. Whether that broader trend factors into how Contra Costa prosecutors ultimately resolve Abril-Garcia’s case remains to be seen as negotiations continue.
