SANTA ANA, Calif. – Bradley Gene Funk, a 59-year-old man with two prior driving under the influence convictions, has been charged with murder for hitting and killing a 13-year-old boy in Dana Point on Tuesday morning as the sixth-grader was walking to school with his older brother.
Funk, who is currently on probation for a 2021 driving under the influence and hit and run conviction, was arrested after witnesses helped deputies find him several blocks from where he hit the boy in his disabled pickup truck with one of his tires missing.
Funk, 59, of Dana Point, was charged with one felony count of murder and one felony count of hit and run with permanent and serious injury.
At about 8:20 a.m. on Tuesday, Funk is accused of hitting a curb near Dana Point Harbor Drive and Park Lantern and hitting 13-year-old Luis Adrian Morales-Pacheco of San Juan Capistrano, who was walking to school with his older brother. His brother was not injured.
Funk is accused of failing to stop after hitting Morales-Pacheco and continuing driving until his pickup truck lost a tire and became disabled several blocks from the collision. Morales-Pacheco, who was on his way to Niguel Hills Middle School, died at the hospital.
Drivers convicted of driving under the influence in California are required to be given what is known as a Watson advisement that informs them that if they kill someone while driving under the influence they can be charged with murder. Funk pled guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in two separate cases in 2021. He received the Watson advisement both times. The Steve Ambriz Act, authored by then-Assembly member Todd Spitzer, requires people applying for a California driver’s license to sign a form acknowledging that they can be charged with murder if they kill someone while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“The death of a child leaves a hole in the heart of our entire community,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “Luis did not have to die and the driver who killed him was told over and over again of the lives he would be risking if he got behind the wheel intoxicated, and he did it anyway. And now Luis’ family is forced to live without their little boy whose smile could light up a room – all because a stranger made a selfish decision and Luis and his entire family paid the ultimate price.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Casey Cunningham of the Homicide Unit is prosecuting this case.