Hopes, dreams of couple cut short in car crash

Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2003 | 11:52 a.m.

Two weeks.

That's all the time Eli and Raylene Sander Espino, both 19, had together as husband and wife before a two-car head-on collision early Sunday morning killed Raylene, the couple's unborn son and their 12-year-old niece, Shizel, and left Eli hospitalized.

Now a massive scrapbook and dozens of photographs scattered throughout the couple's new apartment is all Eli Espino Jr. has left of the dreams he shared with his high school sweetheart.

"She's everywhere; there's pictures of her and him everywhere, all over the wall, on the coffee table, in the bedroom," Eli's mother, Arlene Topping, said of the couple's apartment while at a candlelight vigil for Raylene and Shizel Espino on Tuesday night at the crash site. "They have the wedding pictures on the wall that we hadn't even seen yet.

"I don't know, I don't know how he is going to make it. I'm so scared for him." Raylene Espino's best friend shared a similar concern at the vigil, where nearly 100 family members and friends gathered around a makeshift altar to light candles and sing hymns in English and Hawaiian to honor Raylene and Shizel.

"All (Eli) keeps on saying is, what am I going to do without my wife," Ariana Salazar, 18, said at the vigil. "They were always together." The Henderson couple were driving their niece home from their wedding reception at Raylene's mother's house in northwest Las Vegas when their Toyota was hit head-on by a Mitsubishi fleeing the scene of another accident, Henderson police said. About 1 a.m. Sunday morning, 27-year-old Fabian Cantu veered into the Espino's lane on Lake Mead Drive at Reserve Boulevard as he tried to escape a Pontiac Sunfire that was chasing him. Cantu also died in the crash, police said.

The couple had eloped two weeks earlier, on Oct. 26. They met two years ago while in night school, and Raylene was seven months pregnant with the son the couple planned to name Eldon Kilohana Espino, Raylene's mother, Robbin Mollus said. Kilohano means "superior" in Raylene's native Hawaiian culture, she added.

Their niece, 12-year-old Shizel, was very close to the couple and had begged her mother to let her stay at the reception longer and dance with them, Shizel's mother, Veronica Espino, said Tuesday evening outside of her Henderson home.

The seventh grader at Courtney Middle School had a brown belt in karate, made good grades and wanted to be a pediatrician when she grew up, her parents said. She also loved boys and jet skiing, and was already planning her quinceanera, a Spanish birthday coming-of-age celebration for when girls turn 15.

Shizel's parents were told that Eli was taken to a hospital about 3 a.m. Sunday morning but did not learn about Shizel or Raylene until an hour later, her mother said. The person who called did not even tell them what hospital Eli was in, Veronica Espino said.

"My husband told me, 'You know baby, prepare for the bad news,' but I said, 'No, she's OK.

I'm waiting up for her,' " Veronica Espino said. "Even after they called I still said 'She's alive, she's not dead, no ... I don't want to believe it.' " The family went from celebrating to mourning in only a few short hours. For Raylene's family, it was a triple loss, as her adoptive grandfather died the same weekend.

"My kids lost their grandfather, sister and nephew all at once," Mollus said.

Family members and friends placed flowers, candles, crosses and messages written on large, smooth rocks to Raylene and Shizel near the crash site Tuesday night. Raylene's biological father, Roger Dimalanta, began the singing with a hymn in Hawaiian and then sang Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven." Eli Espino, discharged from the University Medical Center Trauma Center just hours earlier, limped into the inner circle of people for only a few minutes. Embraced by both his parents and Raylene's brother Randon Sander, he cried as he looked out over all the offerings to his beloved wife and niece.

He watched most of the ceremony from a wheelchair, surrounded by family.

"They were so in love and Eli is going nuts," Mollus said. "We had to tell him that night (of the accident) and I don't think it really sunk in. ... The next morning it really hit him. He wanted his wife and that is all he wanted, he didn't want to live and he didn't want to get better."

The couple had been saving up for a year-and-a-half to purchase their wedding rings and had just gotten them off layaway before the elopement, Mollus said. They had forgone a formal ceremony in order to save money for their son, she added.

"They were just starting out, they were on their way to form a family," Eli's dad, Eli Espino Sr. said.

The couple loved to quote movies and were always laughing and joking, their parents said. They were doing their best to make ends meet on Eli's landscaping job at Black Mountain Golf Club.

Raylene's mother, Robbin Mollus, said her daughter was a "video queen," always scrapbooking and making videos of family history.

"She was ready to record their history, be a mother and someone's wife, start their own family's traditions," Mollus said.

Raylene Espino was videotaping her own wedding reception Saturday night, just hours before the crash, when her husband asked her to dance, Mollus said.

"They were so happy, they were so happy that night ... Raylene was up there dancing with her big ol' belly," Mollus said.

She said the couple kept sneaking off during the reception Saturday night to be with each other.

"He loved her so much," Mollus said. "And (at the reception) I thought that I was so lucky, that's all I could want as a parent is to have someone love her that much." Shizel is survived by her parents, Franklin and Veronic Espino, and her siblings Sizly, Karen, Chantal and Joske Espino. Visitation for Shizel is today at her parent's home, and the service is Thursday at 11 a.m. at Prince of Peace Catholic Church.

Raylene Espino is survived by her husband, her parents Shawn and Robin Mollus, Frank Sander and Roger Dimalanta, and siblings Kyle, Donovan, Krysta and Kira Mollus, and Randon and Rayce Sander. The visitation and service for Raylene is Sunday at the Palm Mortuary at 7400 W. Cheyenne Road starting at 9 a.m.

Black Mountain Golf Club, where both Frank and Eli Espino work, is collecting silentauction items such as dinners and golf, as well as cash donations, for a special fund-raiser for the Espino family. Donations can be made to the Frank Espino Family Fund in care of Black Mountain Golf Club, 500 Greenway Road, Henderson, NV, 89015.