{"id":524070,"date":"2026-11-09T19:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T19:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/524070\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T19:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T19:48:15","slug":"trial-begins-in-bakersfield-crash-that-killed-sisters-delivering-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/524070\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial begins in Bakersfield crash that killed sisters delivering newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) &#8212; It started with a missing phone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That&#8217;s what sparked Tevin Brandt to go on a search early March 4, 2023, that ended in a fiery crash &#8212; killing two sisters and badly injuring a third.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Brandt&#8217;s trial on charges including murder began Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">17 News is live blogging the proceedings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Brandt, who had been out bar-hopping in Bakersfield, noticed his cellphone was missing and used an app to track it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Gustavo Montoya, an Uber driver who had earlier given him a ride, joined in the search.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The two drove separately to an area where the app indicated Brandt&#8217;s phone was located and saw a vehicle occupied by sisters Karime and Jennifer Duarte and Diana Ponce, who were delivering newspapers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The men allegedly confronted them, believing they had Brandt&#8217;s phone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The sisters, in an attempt to get away, sped to the end of McKee Road as the men gave chase in their vehicles. The sisters&#8217; vehicle left the road and was launched onto Highway 99, where it was hit by a pickup and burst into flames.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:Karime Duarte, 21, and Jennifer Duarte, 15;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\/news\/local-news\/they-didnt-deserve-to-die-so-young-family-of-2-killed-in-fiery-mckee-rd-crash-says-victims-were-being-chased\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Karime Duarte, 21, and Jennifer Duarte, 15<\/a>, were killed. Ponce, then 23, suffered serious injuries but survived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Brandt&#8217;s phone was later found in another rideshare vehicle parked at the location where he first confronted the sisters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kget.com\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KGET 17 News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) &#8212; It started with a missing phone. That&#8217;s what sparked Tevin Brandt to go on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-524070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}