Resident Killed in Kern County Crash

An Aliso Viejo woman was among three killed Wednesday afternoon in Kern County when a van returning from a church trip veered to one side of a rustic highway and rolled downhill several times.

Li-Ming Wang Horist, 39, died after she was ejected from the van, said Mack Wimbish, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. She was a nine-year resident of Aliso Viejo, where she ran a metal-finishing business with her husband.

Five women were traveling in the van from a farm in Paso Robles owned by their El Monte church.

Also killed were two Diamond Bar women, Wannein Shen, 79, and Chiu-Tsay Shen, 76, Wimbish said. The driver and a fourth passenger, also from Diamond Bar, were seriously injured in the crash along California 46 in Kern County. Wang Horist had been sleeping in the back of the van when the accident occurred.

She often visited the church farm, according to her husband, Michael Horist, where members cultivated vegetables.

Horist remembered his wife, a native of Taiwan, as “a hard-working woman with integrity and family values.” They had been married for 12 years, two years after Wang Horist had moved from Taiwan.