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Honoring Taylor Moss’ memory

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Honoring Taylor Moss’ memory

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By Daily News | |

PUBLISHED: February 23, 2010 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 28, 2017 at 11:14 a.m.

A prosecutor calls them “Taylor’s Army.”

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It’s the legion of family and friends of Taylor Moss, a 19-year-old college student from Newbury Park who was killed returning home from a Halloween party by an alleged drunk driver going the wrong way on the Ventura Freeway.

“Hopefully, when anyone is killed, you’ll have people mourning the death, but it’s not common to see the large physical presence of the family as it is with Taylor’s peeps,” said Assistant District Attorney Marcus Musante, who is prosecuting Moss’ accused killer.

“They have shown an unusual commitment and devotion to be in court, and I’ve come to call them Taylor’s Army — her army of loving and devoted family and friends.”

That army will be out in force again today, when a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Hector J. Ortiz, 27, of Simi Valley. He faces life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted of murder in Taylor’s death.

The apparent general of Taylor’s army is her mother, Jacquelyn Moss, a single mom on a mission to see justice meted out to the accused drunken driver charged with taking her daughter’s life.

“I am the rallying cry for our daughter,” said Moss, a respiratory therapist.

“Taylor was a beautiful, smart, very kind girl who was living her life,” she said. “It was not her time to go, and (Ortiz) is going to be receiving justice for what he’s done. I’m very anxious for that.”

Moss, a Moorpark College student, was returning home with some friends at 2 a.m. on Nov. 1 from a Halloween party in Hollywood when her 1997 Toyota Corolla was struck head-on by a 2008 Camry on the northbound 101 Freeway in Encino, authorities said.

Two of Moss’ friends in her car were also hurt in the crash, as were drivers of two other vehicles that were struck after the initial collision. Moss sustained fatal injuries and was taken off life support in the hospital several days after the crash. Her organs were donated to save three lives.

The California Highway Patrol arrested Ortiz at the scene, saying he was intoxicated and had driven the wrong way on the freeway.

Ortiz’s preliminary hearing and subsequent trial could take on a higher profile after Musante elevated the original charge of vehicular manslaughter to murder.

Ortiz is also charged with gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence and causing injury, and driving with at least an 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level and causing injury.

The case will be watched by groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and trial attorneys who have been pushing for stronger punishment against drunk drivers.

“We are very supportive of anyone who is a victim of tragedies like this,” said personal injury lawyer Steve Telish, whose Southern California law firm specializes in cases involving victims of drunk drivers but is not involved in the Ortiz case.

Musante said the law allows a murder charge to be brought when there is evidence of “implied malice.”

“We believed the murder charge was appropriate,” Musante said. “Implied malice does have certain requirements that have to be met, and in reviewing the case our office believes the murder charge is warranted.”

The trial may also draw attention because of the attorney defending Ortiz – Robert Shapiro, who was part of the “dream team” that successfully defended O.J. Simpson from murder charges in the 1994 slayings of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman.

Shapiro, along with associate Steve Levine, issued a statement on the case: “Since this horrible human event occurred, the Ortiz family has expressed its deepest regret and condolences to the Moss family over the senseless and tragic death of Taylor, their beautiful daughter. Mr. Ortiz wishes he could go back in time and make things as they were; he cannot, but his and his family’s prayers are with the Moss family.”

Despite the high-priced defense lawyer, Ortiz remains jailed at the North County Correctional Facility at Castaic, unable to post a $1 million bail that was imposed after the charges were elevated.

Among Taylor Moss’ family and friends in Ventura County, the case has drawn outrage – underscored by how Taylor’s character was directly opposite of that Ortiz in the one significant aspect that led to her untimely death.

“She didn’t drink or do drugs of any kind,” her mother said in an interview. “She was the kind of child every parent wishes her child to be. She had never been in any trouble. She was not immoral and had never broken the law.”

But no one perhaps expresses the wrath felt toward Ortiz as eloquently and angrily as Taylor’s 77-year-old grandmother, Ardy Buckley of Newbury Park. She recalled that just days before her death, Taylor helped her plant 65 daffodil bulbs, which are just now starting to bloom.

“There will always be these (expletive) drunk drivers,” Buckley said. “If someone could just see there is going to be punishment for being foolish and drinking too much and driving.

“The (upcoming) trial is just a small part of our lives. The big part is the terrible loss we feel. I miss her every day of my life. We won’t miss anything from the trial. We’ll be there and hoping he gets a big sentence.”

Taylor Moss had aspired to become a teacher and was dressed as a teacher at the Halloween party. She was a full-time student at Moorpark College while also working at the Build-a-Bear Workshop at The Oaks Mall in Thousand Oaks.

“She wanted to be a teacher, and she wanted to help other people, especially children,” said her mother, who recalled that, even in death, her daughter had done an unselfish act.

“Taylor was an organ donor,” Moss said. “It’s the most noble thing you can ever do, to be an organ and tissue donor. Even in dying, she was saving lives. She was helping people see and become whole again.”

Meanwhile, the three and a half months since Taylor’s death have been a trial for her family, especially her mother, who has been seeing a grief counselor on a weekly basis.

“The worse thing that can ever happen to a parent is to lose a child and to lose it in such a terrible way,” Moss said. “It’s hard to get it out of your mind. It twirls around in your head a lot …

“The thing about something like this is that it would be great to have someone lay out a step-by-step plan to work through the grieving. But it doesn’t work that way because everyone’s different.

“I just hope that one day I can learn to live my life without her in it. At the moment it seems impossible to me.”

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