Rev. Manard Giles

[KHTS] – A man accused of driving the wrong way on Highway 14 before an early morning June 2013 crash that killed two and injured several others has been ordered to stand trial.

Bradford Pate, 38, of Burbank, stands accused of five counts – two counts of murder; two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated; one count of DUI causing injury, with a prior conviction; DUI with a blood-alcohol level more than .08 percent, according to court records.

“Pate was held to answer on all charges,” said Ricardo Santiago, spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. “He’s due to be arraigned on March 5  in Dept. N in San Fernando.” Judge Melvin Sandvig will be presiding over the arraignment.

Pate is being charged with killing the Rev. Manard Giles and Mattie Lee Ferguson in a wrong-way crash on Highway 14 in the early morning hours of June 22.

During a preliminary, the evidence in the case is presented to a judge who decides if the burden of proof is enough to warrant a trial for a suspect.

Giles, a 77-year-old Quartz Hill minister, drove the 2006 Chrysler 300 died on scene in the collision. Ferguson, a 60-year-old Lancaster woman, was a passenger in Giles’s car, succumbed to her injuries two nights later at Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills.

In addition to the two fatalities, there were several injured when Pate allegedly drove his 2006 Toyota Tundra south into the northbound lanes of Highway 14, near Escondido Canyon Road, at 3:28 a.m. and collided with a 2006 Chrysler 300, which swerved and struck a rideshare van, according to a CHP report.

Pate had a previous DUI conviction in Ventura County in 2007.

If convicted, Pate is eligible for life in prison.

He is being held at Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $3 million bail.