Police ID driver, his wife who was killed after Toyota plowed into Bay Park home

A woman who was killed Monday after her husband crashed a truck into her Bay Park home, and allegedly started a small fire, was identified Tuesday by San Diego police, as was her spouse.

Officials also said Monday that it was Monica Coates, 61, who called 911 to report that her husband, 62-year-old Stephen Coates, was the driver involved in the crash. Monica had a temporary restraining order against her husband, which allows police to arrest an individual if there is evidence they violated the order, SDPD homicide Lt. Chris Tivanian said.

“In this case, unfortunately, the restraining order didn’t protect her,” Tivanian said.

San Diego Police officer Paige Foster said a call came in at 7:38 a.m. Monday after the white Toyota Tacoma hit the house before coming to rest inside the home at 4312 Dakota Drive at Fontana Avenue.

“Numerous neighbors reported a traffic accident, a vehicle driving into a house,” Foster said. “When officers got there, they found a woman who was deceased inside the home.”

Police said Monday that a neighbor heard screams inside the house after the wreck.

“I saw a couple other people up there throwing rocks at the windows. Some of the neighbors who were trying to get in there to stop [the driver],” neighbor Glen DeBarge told NBC 7 on Monday.

When officers arrived eight minutes after 911 got the call, they saw smoke from a small fire and entered the building, where they found Monica, who had been burned, dead in the master bath. That’s also where investigators found Stephen, who had also been burned.

Monica Coates’ cause of death was set to be completed by the Medical Examiner’s Office once a toxicology report is completed, SDPD said.

Stephen was initially arrested on suspicion of intentionally crashing into the home, and the crash was being investigated as a homicide. Tuesday, however, police said he had been arrested and would be charged with murdering his wife and that he started the fire in the home. Police have not yet been able to interview Stephen Coates, who remained intubated at UC San Diego’s burn hospital, police said.

Tivanian said San Diego police does not have evidence that Stephen Coates had previously violated the temporary restraining order, which was issued on Dec. 1.

Neighbors said Stephen had recently moved out after suffering physical and mental health issues. They also told police the couple has two college-aged sons who recently celebrated Christmas, visiting their mother at the home.

One neighbor, Nancy Allan, said that the Coates, who lived next door, had been troubled in recent weeks and it appeared the husband had moved out.

“I kept looking and, he hadn’t been coming home,” Allan said. “So I got kind of concerned and thinking, ‘Uh-oh, what happened?'”

A few days ago, Allan said, she saw Stephen speeding through the neighborhood.

“Didn’t stop, didn’t wave, and it’s just unlike him, so I thought, ‘Something’s wrong, something’s up,’ ” Allen said.

Another neighbor, Bang Duong, said he spoke with Monica before Christmas and that she had mentioned her husband’s mental state.

“She didn’t know what was happening with him,” Duong said. “So we’re, you know, we were just hoping, praying that, you know, it’d get all better.”

In Monica Coates’ request for a restraining order filed in San Diego Superior Court last month, she wrote that in the weeks leading up to November, her husband had come to believe she was “conspiring with others to kill him and his paranoia has made him erratic and makes me fear for my safety because he perceives me as someone he needs to protect himself from.”

She wrote that those beliefs led him to demand to search her phone, iPad and email accounts for apparent evidence of the conspiracy. He also asked a friend of his if he should arm himself with a shotgun for protection, she wrote.

Monica eventually “fled” her home but returned after receiving a phone call from one of their neighbors, who stated things had “escalated.”

Upon returning to the home, she discovered her husband “booby trapped the interior of the home with fishing line, and had bolted the front door mail slot with a metal plate,” according to the restraining order request.

Psychiatric Emergency Response Team officers removed Stephen from the home involuntarily and a psychiatric hold was put in place. While Stephen was hospitalized, he apparently made several calls to friends in which he continued to make “claims about the false narrative,” she wrote.

In her restraining order request, she wrote that her husband was released from the hospital earlier than expected, leading her to seek court intervention “because I’ve been told Steve still believes I am a threat.” In the documents, she also wrote that her husband had previously destroyed or damaged property, and she was concerned he might “do more in (his) current mental state.”

Court records also show a restraining order request was filed by Monica against her husband in 2009. Details on what led to that request were not available in Superior Court records, which showed that the case was dismissed less than a month later.

Anyone with information about the case is asked being urged to call SDPD at (619) 531-2293. Tips can also be called in anonymously to Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.