PASCO, Wash.- 2021 Chiawana High School graduate and UC Davis student, Codi Orlando Mateo has died as a result of a wrong-way driver in Stockton, California. Mateo was 19 years old.
A driver on March 31 entered SR-99 the wrong way before hitting the car that Mateo and two other students were in, causing the car to veer into the path of another car. Two other cars were involved in the deadly crash.
All four were pronounced dead on the scene. Three of the four, including Mateo, were students at UC Davis.
The use of alcohol is suspected in causing the crash.
In a press release from the school, the victims were identified as Mateo of Pasco, Minkyu Geon of Hong Kong and Margarette Guinito Ventura of Virgina Beach.
Geon was a junior electrical engineering major. Ventura was a biological sciences sophomore. Mateo was a neurobiology, physiology and behavior major.
Mateo was part of the Filipinx Association for Health Careers and the Thai American Student Association.
“We are absolutely devastated and struggling to come to terms with such immense loss,” said Chancellor Gary S. May. “On behalf of the UC Davis community, we send our condolences to the family, friends and others who knew and loved them. Our Aggie family shares deeply in your pain and loss.”
Mateo’s former high school shared musical memories of his time at Chiawana.
