Girl Scout who Warned of Angeles Crest Highway's Danger will Testify Tuesday

Seven months before Marcos Costa's 25-ton big rig lost its brakes and barreled out of control down Angeles Crest Highway, another truck careened through the same intersection at Foothill Boulevard - but no one died. 

As some 70,000 onions clogged the intersection, local Girl Scout Malia Mailes pondered the perilous grade of the Crest, which, in 2008 and the first part of 2009, did not prohibit vehicles with more than three axles - as it does now.

Mailes, a sophomore at La Cañada High School in 2008-09, researched accidents on the Crest and determined in March 2009 that the California Department of Transportation needed to enhance safety measures on the curvy mountain road.

One month later, two people died after Costa's 18-wheeler barreled down the Crest, smashed into several cars and bulldozed into the old . Costa, 46, is charged with murder for the deaths of Palmdale resident

Several other motorists, including Janeen Volsey and Alison Roybal sustained injuries during the Apr. 1, 2009 accident. Crying, Volsey shakily testified last week that she still suffers numbness in her leg, and Royball, who'd been chewing gum in the car en route to a church function, described coming to, as a paramedic told her she rhythmically chewed glass with her gum. Royball was airlifted to a hospital.

In addition to second-degree murder, Costa is charged with

Deputy District Attorney Carolina Lugo has told the 10-man, two-woman jury that Costa never should have traversed the narrow mountain road in a 25-ton vehicle and that a witness stopped the truck for smoking brakes well north of La Cañada. The truck forged on, she said, indicating a wanton disregard for life. As for Costa's court-appointed attorney Edward Murphy, the lawyer has reiterated that it was a horrible accident but his client didn't murder anyone.

Murphy intends to put Mailes on the witness stand Tuesday afternoon. During a at just after the 2009 accident, Mailes said she was not an expert or a traffic engineer, but as a teen-age Girl Scout researching her Gold Award project, she believed state transportation officials needed to step up.

"CalTrans should have helped us. We need them to stop allowing trucks on this route. It’s a danger that’s going to continue if they don’t stop,'' Mailes said during the press conference.

After Costa's accident, the state made it illegal for vehicles with more than three axles to traverse Angeles Crest Highway - timing that Costa, himself, finds interrsting and a point he's using to bolster his civil lawsuit against the county and the state. Along with Costa, the victims from the Apr. 1 accident are suing the city, county and state.