A Colorado prosecutor will not charge anyone in the 2021 death of a 6-year-old who was killed while on an amusement park attraction.
District Attorney Jefferson Cheney of the Ninth Judicial District said he did not have enough evidence to prove two employees at Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park were responsible for not checking the safety belts on Wongel Estifanos, according to a two-page letter issued on Jan. 25 and recovered by the Denver Gazette on Wednesday. He declined to charge either of the two workers, identified as Toby Williams and Steve Ochoa, with criminally negligent homicide or manslaughter, the outlet reported.
The Estifanos family filed a lawsuit against Glenwood Springs Adventure Park in October and was “shocked and outraged” by the district attorney’s decision, according to attorney Dan Caplis. A statement from the family members on Wednesday said their daughter’s death “has been treated as cheap and meaningless,” the Idaho Statesman reported.
“We never wanted the people who killed our daughter to go to jail,” the statement said. “But for the DA to let them off with nothing says our daughter’s life was worth nothing.”
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Estifanos died on Sept. 6, 2021, while riding the Haunted Mine Drop, which plunges riders 110 feet below ground. The ride describes itself on the park’s website as the world’s first drop ride to go underground.
In October 2021, the Colorado agency that licenses amusement parks fined Glenwood Caverns Holdings $68,000 after investigators determined park employees did not notice Estifanos sitting on the two safety belts. The park was ordered to close, and workers were required to undergo additional safety training, reports said.
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The part received complaints in 2018 and 2019 over employees not noticing that riders of the Haunted Mine Drop were not buckled in. Roughly 30,000 amusement park injuries occur each year, though fatal accidents are known to be much rarer, Far and Wide reported.
