Two drivers responsible for traffic crashes that left three people dead in Raleigh and Angier this week had criminal records that should have prevented them from being behind the wheel of a car, according to investigators.

Both men had twice been convicted for driving while impaired. Police charged one of them with drunken driving this week, and investigators think alcohol played a role in the other crash, though the driver fled on foot before he was arrested a day later.

Neither man had a valid driver's license.

"That, unfortunately, is something we see very frequently," Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue said Tuesday. "You can take someone's driver's license away, but you can't stop them from driving."

Raleigh police have not released the name of the 47-year-old man killed Monday on Interstate 40 as they work to notify his next of kin. Police think the victim also consumed alcohol before the collision Monday night, Sughrue said.

The Angier accident killed Jerry Dwane Braswell, 35, of 3833 Manor Drive in Clayton and his 9-year-old son, Jerry Dwane Braswell Jr., on Sunday night, said 1st Sgt. Steve Greene, a state Highway Patrol spokesman. The Braswells died at the intersection of Plainview Church Road and N.C. 210.

State troopers say Luciano Tellez, 31, of Angier was driving a Ford Contour after leaving a friend's house in Coats. He collided with a truck after running a stop sign. Braswell tried to miss the Contour, but his front right tire ran across the top of the car. The truck, a tractor running without a trailer, overturned and came to a rest on the cab's top in a ditch. Father and son were killed when leaking diesel fuel ignited, the Highway Patrol reported.

The patrol arrested Tellez on Monday afternoon and charged him with two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle. Before his arrest, Tellez was wanted by police for a probation violation stemming from a 2005 drunken driving conviction in Wake County. He was also convicted of drunken driving in Wake County in 2002.

On Tuesday, the patrol charged Tellez with felony hit and run and two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Investigators, who found beer cans in the Contour, think Tellez had been drinking before the crash. Two passengers in the Contour who remained at the crash scene told troopers that Tellez had been drinking, Greene said.

Tellez remained in the Johnston County jail Tuesday, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement also has filed a detainer against him. During a court appearance, his bail was increased from $2 million to $3.02 million, a court spokesman said.

About 24 hours after the wreck in Angier, police say, the drunken driver of a Chevy van hit and instantly killed a pedestrian who tried to walk across I-40 near Hammond Road in Raleigh.

Jose Alexander Nolasco-Amaya, 32, of 3813 Watkins Ridge Court in Raleigh was charged with driving while impaired and driving while his license was revoked. Police said Nolasco-Amaya had a blood-alcohol content of .12, above the legal limit of .08.

Court records show Nolasco-Amaya has two driving while impaired convictions in Wake County, in 1999 and in 1998, when he also was convicted of driving while his license was revoked.

Nolasco-Amaya's van was traveling east at the posted speed limit of 65 mph when it struck the man about 10:14 p.m., police reported.

The man's body was hit by a second vehicle that was also going 65 mph, police reported. The driver of that vehicle did not stop, police reported.

Nolasco-Amaya was taken to the Wake County jail, where a spokesman said he has been detained in the past under at least four different names. The spokesman said Nolasco-Amaya was no longer in custody Tuesday.

(News researcher Susan Ebbs contributed to this report.)

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