CALDWELL, ID — The man whose Dodge Challenger flew onto a Nampa rooftop during a deadly crash last winter has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter.
Angel Eduardo Rico, of Caldwell, was sentenced Sept. 22 to serve a minimum of three years and as many as 12 years in prison. Canyon County prosecutors said the 18-year-old was driving at a high rate of speed when he lost control on Dec. 1, 2024.
The crash killed one passenger, injured another adult man and left two homes damaged on the 1000 block of East Amity Avenue near Diamond Street.
How the crash unfolded on East Amity Avenue
According to prosecutors, Rico was behind the wheel early that morning when he failed to take a curve in the road. His car struck a berm in a front yard, then became airborne before hitting a chimney on one house and coming to rest on the roof of another.
The impact was severe enough to cause extensive damage to both homes. Power was also out in the area for hours after the wreck, adding a broader disruption beyond the immediate crash site.
Investigators and court records tied the crash to reckless speed, making the wreck one of the more striking examples of how quickly a loss of control can turn a street into a disaster scene.
Passenger Jose Teran Chaparro died in the wreck
One of Rico’s passengers, 31-year-old Jose Teran Chaparro of Nampa, died in the crash. A second adult male passenger survived but was injured.
Prosecutors said Chaparro and Rico were friends, a fact Judge Randall Grove brought up directly during sentencing. The judge told Rico, “You killed your friend,” and said he would have to live with that for the rest of his life.
That personal detail gave the case a particularly painful edge in court, where the sentence followed a guilty plea rather than a trial.
Prosecutors said Rico had been drinking and using drugs
The Canyon County Prosecutor’s Office said Rico had been out drinking and using drugs the night before the crash. That detail was included in the office’s sentencing announcement, alongside the guilty plea to vehicular manslaughter.
Rico was 18 at the time of the wreck. Prosecutors did not say in the release what specific substances were involved, but they said his condition the previous night was part of the circumstances leading up to the crash.
The combination of speed and impairment helped explain why the vehicle left the road with such force and why the outcome was so destructive.
Judge imposed prison term and long license suspension
Under the sentence, Rico must serve at least three years before becoming eligible for parole, with a maximum term of 12 years. After he is released from prison, his driver’s license will be suspended for five years.
Online court records and the prosecutor’s office said the sentence came after Rico entered a guilty plea, bringing the criminal case to a close for now. The court punishment reflects both the death of Chaparro and the serious damage caused in the crash.
The punishment also means Rico will spend years under supervision before he can drive again, if he regains that right at all after the license suspension period ends.
A neighborhood crash with long aftermath for two families
The wreck affected more than the people inside the car. Two homes on East Amity Avenue took heavy damage when the Challenger struck first one structure and then landed on another roof.
For neighbors, the crash also meant an hourslong outage and an emergency response that turned a quiet street into a scene of destruction. The location at Diamond Street placed the collision in a residential area where the force of the impact was impossible to miss.
Even after the car was removed and the court case moved forward, the damage remained as a reminder of what happened that winter morning.
Local news that matters, from Dulaney Griffin.
