A San Mateo County jury on Tuesday awarded $33 million to the twin girls orphaned in a 2022 Redwood City street race — and, in a finding the criminal courts never reached, held the teenage driver's own parents liable for 25% of it.

The verdict closes a civil case that went where the prosecutions could not. Criminal court handled the two drivers: Cesar Morales, 17 at the time, was adjudicated in juvenile court; Kyle Harrison, an adult, drew an eight-year prison term and died in custody a month into it. But only the civil jury reached Arnold Morales and Susana Salto Alvarez — the driver's parents — finding they negligently let their son keep driving after citations for going more than 100 mph. The jury assigned them a combined 25% of the fault, turning a wrongful-death award into a rare test of when parents answer for a teenager behind the wheel.

Greg Ammen, 44, and Grace Spiridon, 42, were driving home to San Carlos on the night of Nov. 4, 2022, their two 7-year-old daughters in the back seat, when a Mercedes traveling at highway speed struck their Chevrolet on El Camino Real in Redwood City. Both parents were killed. The girls, now 11, survived and were adopted by their aunt, Liza Spiridon, and uncle.

Nearly four years later, after a roughly three-week trial, a San Mateo County jury awarded the girls $33 million in economic and non-economic damages, according to NBC Bay Area. The 2023 lawsuit alleged that Morales and a second driver, Kyle Harrison, were racing when Morales — clocked by trial evidence at more than 100 mph — T-boned the family's car as it turned. Harrison's vehicle never made contact, but plaintiffs argued the two men were racing together and both bore responsibility.

What sets the civil verdict apart from the criminal cases is who it reached. Jurors assigned Cesar Morales 60% of the fault and Harrison 15%. The remaining quarter fell on Morales's parents: 20% to Arnold Morales and 5% to Susana Salto Alvarez, on a finding of negligent supervision. Plaintiffs' attorneys showed the jury that Morales had been ticketed a year earlier, at 16, for driving 108 mph, and had a separate citation for using a phone while driving. His parents testified they did not know about the citations, which had been mailed to the home they shared with their son.

"You cannot ignore warning signs with your teenage children," plaintiffs' attorney Niall McCarthy said after the verdict, in remarks reported by NBC Bay Area and SFist. "Parents need to do more than simply provide a car and hope for the best. They need to act when it is apparent their child needs a course correction." He added that there were "a number of points where the parents could have taken action and this tragedy would have been avoided."

The criminal outcomes had already left the family unsatisfied. In juvenile court, Morales was found responsible for two felony counts — vehicular manslaughter and street racing — and, per NBC Bay Area, spent roughly two years in juvenile hall before being sentenced to house arrest. He is now 21. Harrison, who pleaded no contest to felony vehicular manslaughter and street racing, was sentenced to eight years in state prison. Weeks into that term, on March 15, 2025, he was found unresponsive in his cell at Redwood City's Maple Street Correctional Center. The San Mateo County coroner attributed his death to the toxic effects of methadone, amitriptyline and gabapentin and ruled it accidental — meaning the restitution phase of his case never proceeded.

Whether the girls collect the full $33 million is a separate question. McCarthy told KTVU he had not been able to assess the Morales family's finances but believed he could recover a "significant" portion of the judgment on behalf of the twins.

The litigation around the crash is not finished. Harrison's parents and estate are suing San Mateo County over his jail death, alleging staff administered the medications that killed him. And Morales and his parents have filed their own civil-rights suit against Redwood City, the county and other agencies, arguing investigators prematurely branded the crash a street race and violated Morales's rights during the juvenile proceedings. Government defendants have denied wrongdoing.

For now, the practical meaning of Tuesday's verdict is narrow but pointed: a jury looked past the driver and the racer and found that the adults who handed a cited teenager the keys owed the orphaned girls a quarter of the bill.