Family found wrecked truck of SLO County teen killed in crash. ‘Our hearts are broken’
Sixteen-year-old Eric Aguilar was on his way to buy flowers for a girl late at night when his car veered off of Highway 1 near Cambria and crashed down an embankment in September.
His family found his lifeless body on the side of the road hours later, they said.
“I ran toward him and hugged him,” Eric’s father Salvador Aguilar told The Tribune in a recent interview. “I asked God, why?”
Salvador Aguilar spoke in Spanish while Eric’s aunt, Lupe Aguilar, translated.
The crash that killed Eric happened around 9 p.m. on Sept. 14, though he was not found until the next morning.
Born and raised in San Simeon, Eric’s sudden death was felt across the small San Luis Obispo County community and the closely neighboring town of Cambria.
“Our hearts are broken,” Salvador said.
But in the wake of this tragedy, the Aguilar family was touched by the outpouring of support from their surrounding communities.
Without even asking, the towns came together to raise over $20,000 in Eric’s name, his aunt said.
“It’s something unbelievable,” Lupe said through tears. “That just shows how much he was loved by the community.”
San Simeon teen wanted to play pro soccer
Eric was born April 28, 2008, in San Luis Obispo. He grew up in San Simeon along with his two brothers, Kevin and Salvador “Chava” Aguilar. He was the middle child.
Eric’s parents described him as a passionate soccer player, a talented artist, a curious student and a loyal friend. He was a happy, active child, always kicking around a soccer ball and doing tricks on his skateboard, they said.
“He wasn’t afraid of anything,” his mother Flor Patricia Miranda said in Spanish while Lupe translated.
Eric played soccer from a young age, joining a league at just 3 years old, his mother said. He went on to play forward for the Central Coast Dynasty Futbol Club and for the team at Coast Union High School, where he was in his junior year.
Eric looked up greatly to his older brother, Chava, who received a full-ride scholarship to play Division 1 soccer at UC Santa Barbara and hopes to go pro.
Eric had similar dreams, his father said.
Family searched for son for hours after he went missing
The last day before Eric’s death, Salvador watched his son play in two soccer games and score multiple goals, he said. They went to Eric’s favorite restaurant, Buffalo Wild Wings, shared a plate of chicken drums and talked about his plans to score 20 goals this season.
Later that day, Eric’s parents and his younger brother went to their relatives’ house for dinner. Eric was supposed to meet them there later, but he never showed up, his father said.
The last time they saw him was through the footage on the security camera outside their front door at 8:44 p.m.
Around 10:45 p.m., when Eric still hadn’t arrived, the family began to worry. After going home and realizing the truck and its keys were gone, they split up and went looking for him.
They later learned from a text Eric sent to a friend that he had taken his father’s work truck without permission to go to Albertsons in Morro Bay to buy flowers for a girl — but he never made it.
His family drove around for hours looking for him, not knowing that they were repeatedly driving right past the scene of the crash on Highway 1, Salvador said.
At around 3 a.m., they called 911.
An officer arrived at the house around 4 a.m. but told them they could only help search if Eric was reported missing or if they said he had stolen the car, Salvador said.
He refused to put blame on Eric by reporting that he had stolen the truck, so the officer denied to assist with the search, Salvador said.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Cipolla told The Tribune the Sheriff’s Office did not have the legal authority to conduct a search without a missing persons or stolen vehicle report, which the family did not want to file.
He said deputies still checked all hospitals in the county for Eric, searched the local area for the truck and alerted Paso Robles and Atascadero Police Departments to be on the lookout.
Finally, early the next morning, Eric’s relatives joined the search and tracked Eric’s location on his phone.
It brought them to the side of the highway north of Burton Drive in Cambria.
“I looked down, and that’s when I saw him down there, lifeless,” Salvador said through difficult breaths.
Salvador ran toward his son, and Flor heard her husband’s screams from afar.
“The scene that I saw was a horrible, horrible scene,” Flor said.
Emergency responders arrived shortly after, and the coroner estimated Eric had been dead for eight hours. They told the Aguilars he had likely died at the time of the crash, around 9 p.m. the night before.
This is not the first time Salvador has lost a child. His first son, Hector Aguilar Merlos, died eight years ago at 20 years old, Salvador said.
“Life is cruel sometimes,” he said.
Family wants to send message to teens to not text and drive
The cause of the crash is unknown and still under investigation, but the family said the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office told them that day that Eric was not speeding.
His parents do not know for sure, but they strongly suspected Eric could have been texting at the time of the crash. They said his phone showed that the last text he sent was at 8:56 p.m., just minutes before his estimated time of death.
“We want to sent a message to all young people not to text and drive,” Salvador said.
Now, the family is taking time to be together and mourn.
“My little brother Eric was someone real special,” his older brother Chava wrote in a text message to The Tribune. “He never asked for anything, and made sure to always be there for his loved ones, showing more support and love sometimes than he would give to himself, but that was just the type of person he was.”
“Him leaving us that day left us devastated, but our memories with him will stay with us forever,” his younger brother Kevin wrote.
‘Thank you to everyone.’ Aguilar family touched by community support
In the wake of this tragedy, the Aguilar family was touched by the incredible support shown to them by their community.
“The amount of support from the community, it’s unbelievable,” Lupe said.
Without the family even asking or setting up a donation fund themselves, the town raised enough money to cover Eric’s funeral service, the burial and his headstone, and the donations are still coming in, the family said.
But the support they received was more than just financial.
Just hours after Eric’s death, people flocked to church for a noon Mass in his name, Lupe said. Starting that day, people began visiting their home with food, flowers and messages of support, and they haven’t stopped since, she said.
Salvador said he was most impacted by how many people came to Eric’s funeral procession and service.
“It was something unbelievable,” Lupe said. “There were hundreds. The whole downtown street was full of people.”
While they can never get their son back, the Aguilar family said they feel honored by the love shown to them by their community.
“We’re so blessed and thankful to all the people that came to support us,” Salvador said. “I want to make sure that all these people that don’t know us as a family get the message that we’re very, very blessed and very grateful. Thank you to everyone.”
People can still donate by making a deposit directly into the Aguilar family’s account at the Pacific Premier Bank with checks made payable to Salvador Aguilar or Flor Miranda.
This story was originally published October 21, 2024 at 3:32 PM.
