
CHICAGO — A man who sports teeth sharpened into fangs and is out on bail for three felonies, allegedly killed a 12-year-old girl in a drunken crash in which his blood-alcohol level was five times the legal limit, prosecutors said.
Daniel Regalado, 27, was driving in South Cicero with two passengers when he crossed the median and plowed into an oncoming Cadillac Escalade, cops said.
The collision killed Cire Robinson, a 12-year-old girl riding with her father, Prosecutors say that five seconds before the crash, Regalado was driving 66 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone.
Regalado’s girlfriend was ejected from his Chevy Impala’s passenger seat and suffered a broken femur, facial fractures, and other injuries. She was hospitalized in critical condition. She allegedly told police that Regalado was the driver and was responsible for the crash, CWB Chicago reported.
A passenger riding in the back of Regalado’s car and Robinson’s father were also hospitalized as was Regalado himself. Prosecutors said Regalado’s blood-alcohol level was .457 when he arrived at Stroger Hospital after the crash.
Judge David Navarro said Regalado’s alleged intoxication level “is, I’ll say, the highest I have seen with an individual who is still alive.”
At the hearing, Regalado tried to explain himself. “I was running away. I was running away because I was being shot at,” he told the judge via video. “This has been on-going…this isn’t fair. This isn’t fair at all.”
Lying in a hospital bed with his head and neck braced, Regalado insisted, “they were chasing us!”
When the judge cautioned Regalado against speaking without an attorney present, he continued talking.
“I don’t need an attorney. People that need an attorney are guilty. I don’t need an attorney. Why would I need an attorney? For what?”
Prosecutors charged Regalado with reckless homicide with a motor vehicle, aggravated DUI causing death, and two counts of DUI.
Navarro set his bail at $500,000. But the judge also ordered Regalado held without bail for violating the terms of bond in three separate pending felony cases.
In one pending matter, Regalado is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and reckless discharge of a firearm stemming from a July 2018 incident that prompted a SWAT stand-off in Oak Park. In January 2019, prosecutors charged him with felony manufacture-delivery of cannabis.
Seven months later, with both of those cases still pending, Regalado was again arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of another gun, court records show.
In each case, he was released on a few hundred dollars bail
In December 2015, Regalado was indicted on five counts of attempted murder, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, and possessing a defaced firearm, but Cook County prosecutors dropped the case two years later