ANAHEIM – A man suspected of driving drunk is under arrest after a mother, daughter and another family member were struck by a car and killed while out walking late Saturday night.

Buena Park resident Anthony Lewis Sanchez, 40, is under arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter after the women were hit in the 100 block of South Western Avenue, near Lincoln Avenue, around 11 p.m. Saturday, police Sgt. Bob Dunn said.

Anaheim residents Carmen Mendoza, 56, and her daughter Sheyla Mendoza, 21, were walking in the street with 21-year-old Stephanie Henriquez (niece and cousin to the pair, respectively) when they were struck and killed, officials said. The elder Mendoza and Henriquez died at the hospital while Sheyla Mendoza died at the scene.

The three were walking home from a baby shower, said a former classmate of Sheyla Mendoza’s on Sunday.

“She always had a smile on her face,” said Candy Cortez, 21, who attended Western High School with Mendoza. “No matter what was going on in her life.”

Cortez and a friend lighted religious candles at the scene of the accident Sunday evening. They brightened the memorial, a row of dozens of religious and white candles on the curb. In the afternoon, three red artificial roses lay beside the candles. Later, friends brought more flowers.

A full-time student at nearby Cypress College, Sheyla Mendoza lived just blocks from there, Cortez said.

That stretch of Western Avenue is notorious for speeding, said a neighbor who brought a tall candle to the memorial. The crash happened in the middle of the arterial street, surrounded by apartments, a laundromat and single-family homes.

“They should impose a lower speed limit,” said Maxie Hamilton, 44, who was also at the memorial.

Sanchez was driving a red Honda Civic with a female passenger in the car when he hit three women, according to Anaheim police’s Dunn. Sanchez and the passenger were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening facial injuries.

“Him and his conscious can live though it,” Cortez said of the driver. “He’ll be the one to bear it.”

–Staff writer Mike Reicher contributed to this report.

Contact the writer: (714) 704-3764 or aduranty@ocregister.com