After emotional hearing, bail denied in DUI death of Ethiopian community leader

SAN JOSE — A woman charged with murder for an alleged drunken driving spree last November that killed a beloved figure in the local Ethiopian community was denied bail Friday after an emotional hearing in which the victim’s daughter recounted watching her mother’s life drain away on a street near Santana Row.

Yanette Beas Solorio, 35, a resident of the Colusa County town of Arbuckle, appeared in the courtroom of Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Hector Ramon as part of her request to be moved from jail to a residential treatment facility. She is being held on a murder charge in the death of 55-year-old Santa Clara resident Haregewaine Mitiku Ayalew, and two hit-and-run charges for adjacent crashes.

Deputy public defender Fatima Ortiz cited Beas Solorio’s lack of criminal history prior to the Nov. 30 episode, her willingness to engage in educational and rehabilitative programming while incarcerated, and her status as a model inmate as reasons for her supervised release.

Ortiz took time to recognize the tragedy of Ayalew’s death, but urged Ramon not to “define the entirety on Ms. Beas Solorio’s character based solely on the absolutely worst day of her life.”

“Nothing in her background suggests an ongoing or future threat of violence,” Ortiz said. “She has every incentive to return to court and address these charges.”

That was rebuffed by Adene Kassaye, one of Ayalew’s two daughters and a firsthand witness to her mother’s death. She recounted how they had just finished a shopping trip when their Jeep was hit by the BMW driven by Beas Solorio on South Winchester Boulevard and Tisch Way.

As Kassaye and her mother got out to inspect the damage, Beas Solorio reportedly lurched the BMW forward, making contact with Ayalew’s torso, prompting Ayalew to slam her hands on the BMW’s hood to brace herself and yell at the driver.

That was reportedly followed by Beas Solorio accelerating forward, causing Ayalew to get caught and dragged by the BMW, then eventually fall, followed by Beas Solorio driving over her.

“What I believed to be a quick shopping trip with my mother turned out to be the worst day of my life,” Kassaye told Ramon. “Two minutes later … I was holding my mother in my arms as she fought for her life.”

“The defendant provided no aid, and instead she fled,” she continued. “All I could do is hold my mother and scream for help.”

Kassaye made clear that she was not seeking pre-conviction punishment for Beas Solorio and wants the court process to play out. Instead, she said, she was seeking the defendant’s continued detention to protect the local community.

“My request is not driven by anger or a desire for punishment. It is driven by a sincere concern for public safety,” she said.

San Jose police found that about 15 minutes before the 7:30 p.m. encounter with the two women, Beas Solorio hit a red Tesla in a Santana Row parking lot. After the fatal crash that mortally injured Ayalew — she would later die from causes including brain trauma, cardiac arrest and respiratory failure — Beas Solorio was both seen and recorded on surveillance cameras leaving the scene on Winchester Boulevard.

Another motorist followed her in his Toyota Yaris as she initially headed south, then took a U-turn to head back toward Santana Row; the motorist used his car to block her path near Olsen Drive. Worried that Beas Solorio might hit him, he got out of his car, and the defendant indeed rammed the Yaris out of the way.

The bystander motorist followed Beas Solorio two miles north to Bellomy Street — now in Santa Clara — where he reported that he saw the defendant pull over her BMW, then move into the passenger seat, then called police.

San Jose police officers reported Beas Solorio as having bloodshot eyes, an unsteady gait, slurred speech and the odor of alcohol. A police affidavit described her as “resistive at the scene.”

On Friday, Judge Ramon pushed back on Ortiz’s admonition against judging Beas Solorio’s fitness for jail release based solely on that night, saying he was troubled by the totality of her actions, calling the episode “much more than just a driving under the influence case with a bad outcome.

“It’s so much more than that. There’s human agency involved,” Ramon said. “Her behavior manifests a self preservation at any costs.”

Ramon said the release plan proposed by Ortiz was sufficient “under ordinary circumstances,” but noted “the opportunities as described by (Ayalew’s) children to avoid the situation where the victim ends up under the wheels of your client’s car.”

He concluded that if Beas Solorio is released, “there is a substantial likelihood that someone in this community will likely suffer great bodily harm.”

Ayalew’s death was widely mourned in the South Bay, and she was remembered for her devotion to humanitarian causes in Ethiopia and locally. She was warmly known as a “Mother of the Poor” who helped and fed displaced families, trauma survivors, people experiencing homelessness and mental illness.

She was also lauded for the establishment of a dormitory and library at the Debre Birhan Selassie Church in the Ethiopian city of Gondar to support theology students. Ayalew worked as a home care and home health aide, and also ran the San Pedro Gift Shop in Downtown San Jose for over a decade.

More than 1,000 people attended her memorial service in December, including San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who gave a eulogy. Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-San Jose, also attended the memorial, and in January he commemorated Ayalew in the Congressional Record. In remarks on the House floor, Liccardo commended Ayalew for her “service, generosity, humility, and an unwavering commitment to uplifting the vulnerable.”