{"id":257457,"date":"2026-04-20T01:35:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/257457\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T01:35:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:35:06","slug":"5-year-old-killed-in-gulf-freeway-crash-driver-charged-with-manslaughter-court-documents-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/257457\/","title":{"rendered":"5-year-old killed in Gulf Freeway crash, driver charged with manslaughter, court documents show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) &#8212; Authorities said a 5-year-old passenger was killed in a crash on the Gulf Freeway after the driver of the vehicle hit another car while speeding on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to the Houston Police Department, the driver of the vehicle, identified as 60-year-old Daniel Ruiz, failed to control the speed of his car and struck another vehicle in the 16700 block of Gulf Freeway near FM 2351 on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Officials said there was a 5-year-old girl in Ruiz&#8217;s car, sitting in the front passenger seat without a child safety seat. After the crash, the child was taken to the hospital, where she was later pronounced dead, according to HPD.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Investigators said no one in the other vehicle was taken for treatment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to court documents obtained by ABC13, Ruiz is charged with manslaughter following the incident. Ruiz was denied bond, according to officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Court documents also revealed that Ruiz was charged with abandoning a child with the intent to return in December 2024. In that case, Ruiz was sentenced to four years of probation, according to records.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) &#8212; Authorities said a 5-year-old passenger was killed in a crash on the Gulf Freeway&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[96788,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-257457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-96788","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-headlines","11":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}