Victims of 3 fatal crashes on Ventura County roads ID'd

Staff reports
Updated ·2 min read
A man was found dead in his car on a hillside off Westlake Boulevard, south of Potrero Road, in Thousand Oaks on Saturday morning. Authorities on Tuesday identified victims of three separate fatal crashes last week on local roads.
A man was found dead in his car on a hillside off Westlake Boulevard, south of Potrero Road, in Thousand Oaks on Saturday morning. Authorities on Tuesday identified victims of three separate fatal crashes last week on local roads.

The Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office on Tuesday released the names of three people who died in separate traffic accidents on local roadways last week.

Hillcrest Drive

Thousand Oaks resident Isaac F. Cota, 18, died Thursday morning in a single-vehicle crash along Hillcrest Drive in Thousand Oaks.

Ventura County Sheriff's officials said Cota had been driving westbound on Hillcrest around 8:15 a.m. when his vehicle left the road west of Citation Way, went through a chain-link fence and fell into a watershed, landing on its roof. He died at the scene. No one else was in the vehicle.

A GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Cota's memorial, at gofund.me/119d238a, had brought in more than $12,800 toward a goal of $30,000 as of midday Wednesday.

Westlake Boulevard

On Saturday morning, Los Angeles resident Michael H. Sinegal III, 53, was found dead in a vehicle on a hillside off Westlake Boulevard, south of Potrero Road, in Thousand Oaks. The discovery was made by a passerby around 6:40 a.m., with the car up the hillside about 75 feet, sheriff's officials said.

Traffic investigators determined Sinegal had been driving southbound on Westlake when the white sedan apparently ran off the road, drove up an embankment and hit a utility pole before coming to a stop.

Both Thousand Oaks incidents are being investigated by the sheriff's Thousand Oaks traffic bureau. Witnesses to either accident are asked to call Senior Deputy Marcos Moreno at 805-494-8245.

Pacific Coast Highway

Late Saturday afternoon, Oxnard resident Jonathan Genavia, 35, was killed while riding a motorcycle on Pacific Coast Highway, south of Deer Creek Road, in Ventura County.

California Highway Patrol officials said Genavia was riding a 2022 Harley-Davidson southbound around 5:30 p.m. A 74-year-old Oxnard man who was on the right shoulder of PCH in a Toyota Corolla reportedly made a turn directly in front of Genavia's motorcycle, CHP officials said.

Genavia was taken by ground ambulance to a nearby helicopter landing zone along PCH for air transport, but he died while first responders were trying to provide life-saving measures before the helicopter took off, said CHP Officer Jorge Alfaro.

As of Tuesday, no arrests had been made, Alfaro said. The incident remains under investigation. Witnesses are asked to call the CHP's Ventura-area office at 805-662-2640.

A GoFundMe campaign was set up on behalf of Genavia's family, with nearly $23,000 raised as of midday Wednesday toward a goal of $50,000. The fundraiser can be found at gofund.me/d87c8dbc.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Victims of 3 fatal crashes in Ventura County ID'd