COMPOUNDING THE TRAGEDY; CHILD'S DEATH BY DRIVER NO ACCIDENT, OFFICIALS SAY.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Daily News Staff Writer

Hours before she died, 8-year-old Sara Ann Criado attended a Littlerock party, sat on Santa's lap, played with friends and dreamed of Christmas Day.

But Sara's dreams were brutally cut short Saturday night after a quarrel between her mother, Teresa, and her mother's roommate, Doreen Gutierrez, turned deadly. Pinned against a concrete block wall by the roommate's car, the child died on a sidewalk bordering 30th Street East.

``It's just devastating,'' said Fawn Knapp, who attended the party and knows the family. ``They were here and happy and laughing.''

Knapp is a bartender at J J's Sports Tavern, which hosted the party as a fund-raiser for an organization that helps crippled children. She found it difficult to deal with Saturday night's tragedy.

``It's very hard for me,'' she said. ``I took a photo of her with Santa. I gave it to her mother.''

After leaving the fund-raiser, Sara's mother and Gutierrez took the girl and her younger brother to a birthday party at the home of Gutierrez's sister in Palmdale, detectives said.

Back at the car, the children's mother and Gutierrez argued about whether Gutierrez was too drunk to drive home, detectives said, and the mother decided to walk with her children.

``They had an argument about who was going to drive,'' said Detective Dirk Edmundson of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau. ``They were initially all in the car.''

Gutierrez drove slowly along beside the three walkers, tried to persuade them to get into the car and got angry when they refused, deputies said. She drove off but soon turned back and drove the car directly at the three, deputies said.

Sara's mother and brother got out of the way, but Sara was hit by the 1974 Oldsmobile Cutlass and pinned against the wall bordering the sidewalk, deputies said.

Neighbors who heard the crash and ran to the scene said Gutierrez refused to help them move the car to free the girl, tried to punch them and pulled one man's hair, according to deputies.

She rode away with the driver of a Jeep that stopped after the crash, deputies said, and was arrested a few blocks away.

``We're planning on filing murder charges,'' said Edmundson. ``I don't think it was an accident.''

On Monday, the hole in the wall made by the collision was filled with flowers and candles left by friends, relatives and strangers.Grandparents Michael and Lynn D'Agostino drove up to the wall Monday and, in tears, placed a teddy bear there. They wouldn't talk about their grief.

Palmdale resident Angel Acosta and her sister were among the strangers who left flowers.

``I have three children,'' said Acosta. ``It's horrible, the thought that somebody would do that to a child, just because of being angry.''

At J J's, employees are collecting money toward the girl's burial. The bar is at 8714 E. Ave. T, Littlerock.

``There's no way for her to pay for her daughter's burial right now,'' said Knapp.

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Photo

Photo: (Color in AV only) Michael and Lynn D'Agostino comfort each other beside the wall where their granddaughter, Sara Ann Criado, 8, was killed by a car.

John Lazar/Daily News