After John and Susan Maloney and their two young children died in a crash on Highway 37, news crews flocked to their street in Sonoma. A memorial of flowers sprung up on their doorstep, and pictures of their three-bedroom home were featured on TV.

Among those who followed the story, authorities believe, were a Redwood City man with a history of grand theft and his girlfriend.

Smelling opportunity, the couple drove 70 miles to Sonoma, broke into the dead family's empty house, ransacked it of jewelry, electronics and financial records and drove off in the Maloneys' 2006 Nissan 350Z, police said Wednesday.

Michael Vincent Gutierrez, 26, and his girlfriend, Amber Marie True, 29, were arrested Tuesday, just hours after a neighbor discovered the garage door to the Maloneys' home wide open.

Inside, the house was a mess. "Drawers had been opened and turned over. Bookcases had been turned over, things had been pulled off walls," Sonoma Police Chief Bret Sackett said. "Doors had been kicked in."

The burglars even rifled through rooms belonging to the Maloneys' children, Aiden, 8, and 5-year-old Gracie, who died with their parents when a speeding teenager ran a red light and broadsided their minivan Saturday night.

Nightmare made worse

For friends and relatives, still stunned that the Maloneys had been wiped out in an instant, it was almost too much to bear.

"A horrific tragedy has befallen our family, and our nightmare was made worse by a burglary of a home where so many wonderful memories reside," Derrick Van Grol, a cousin of John Maloney, said Wednesday.

Van Grol called whoever ransacked the home "insects."

Sackett said Gutierrez and True had no connection to the Maloneys or to Sonoma County. He said the home had been "seriously ransacked."

In his 20-plus years in law enforcement, Sackett said, he assumed he had seen everything. "But this certainly was a new low for me and, I think, for everybody else investigating this case," he said.

Routine stop

San Mateo police arrested True after pulling her over for a routine traffic stop on South Delaware Street at Concar Drive about 4 p.m. Tuesday. An officer found she had a suspended license, and when police searched her and her car, they discovered a credit card belonging to Susan Maloney, 42, said police Capt. Kevin Raffaelli.

Further checking revealed that jewelry and a Blu-ray DVD player in True's car also belonged to Susan and John Maloney, 45, Sackett said. Shortly after True was arrested, San Mateo County sheriff's deputies drove to a home she shares with her uncle on rural Marine Road off Skyline Boulevard just south of Highway 92.

No one was there, but when deputies returned at 9 p.m., they found the Maloneys' stolen Nissan outside, said acting sheriff's Lt. Wes Matsuura.

Investigators stopped Gutierrez when he left the home at about 9:40 p.m. in the car, Matsuura said.

Police believe that most, if not all, of the items taken from the Maloneys' home have been recovered, Sackett said.

True and Gutierrez were each arrested on suspicion of burglary and vehicle theft. They are being held at Sonoma County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail and are expected to appear in court today.

'Disappointed in her'

The Marine Road home is surrounded by redwoods. Visitors are greeted by two carved wooden bears and a sign reading, "Welcome to Camp 'Grin and Bear It.' "

True's relatives declined to comment, but a woman at the property who didn't want to give her name said, "Everybody's disappointed in her." She said she didn't know Gutierrez.

Gutierrez has two previous convictions, each for grand theft and evading police in San Mateo County, and has been in and out of state prison since 2003, records show.

He was most recently released from prison Aug. 27. In October, he was arrested again and charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of stolen property and possession of methamphetamine, records show.

True has a case pending in San Mateo County for alleged possession of drugs.

Teen drinking in bar?

The Maloneys were killed when they were hit by a Mini Cooper driven by 19-year-old Steven Culbertson of Lakeport (Lake County), who died a day later.

The California Highway Patrol said Culbertson, who was driving south on Lakeville Highway, caused the accident when he ran a red light at 70 to 90 mph. His car broadsided the Maloneys, who were heading east on Highway 37 in their Nissan Quest minivan after flying back earlier in the day from a Hawaiian vacation.

Michael Loffredo, 53, of Petaluma said Wednesday that he believes he saw Culbertson drinking alcohol at Traxx, a Petaluma bar and restaurant, in the hours before the 9:21 p.m. crash. Loffredo said he had also noticed a Mini Cooper in the parking lot with a Lakeport license frame.

Loffredo said he was driving on Lakeville Highway shortly after 9 p.m. when a Mini Cooper going at least 70 mph passed him "like a kamikaze pilot."

After seeing a picture of Culbertson on the news, Loffredo said, he was convinced it was the same man he had seen at Traxx.

Traxx owner Chris Cheney said Wednesday, "As far as I know, he was not here. My staff has done their job very diligently as far as carding people, checking IDs. Whether that person was here or not, I don't know."

Culbertson had his license suspended for a year for drunken driving in 2007, just weeks after he was involved in a crash in Lake County, records show. The CHP said it was trying to determine whether drugs or alcohol played a role in Saturday's crash.