Man sentenced to prison for killing High Point woman

TRIAD — A Winston-Salem man was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder and other charges in a 2023 drunken driving crash that killed four people, including a High Point woman.

Pedro Alfonzo Perez Galdamez, 52, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Forsyth County Superior Court to four counts of second-degree murder, four counts of felony death by motor vehicle and impaired driving.

Galdamez had spent several hours drinking at a bar before heading home around 3 a.m. on April 16, 2023. He began driving his 2010 Honda Accord southbound on US 52 but at one point turned around and drove northbound in the southbound lane. The Accord collided head-on with a 2016 Nissan Sentra driven by Blanca Estela Castillo Bernal, 60, of High Point. The wreck killed Bernal and his three passengers from Winston-Salem: Santa Hernandez Bernadino, 46; Estefania Hernandez, 32; and Gregoria Noyola Jimenez, 64.

Galdamez had minor injuries.

Toxicology reports later revealed that Galdamez’s blood alcohol level at the time of the crash was 0.26%, according to a press release from the Forsyth County District; This is more than three times the legal limit of 0.08% for drivers in North Carolina. Law Firm.

At the scene of the wreck, Galdamez was initially identified with the name Giovany Alarcon Ruiz. Police determined that Galdamez came to the United States and used an assumed name for nearly two decades, the press release said. Police found a passport and ID card in his home bearing the name Pedro Alfonzo Perez Galdamez, issued in El Salvador in 2017.

Galdamez was never properly licensed to drive in the US