An 18-year-old Pima College student — a talented mariachi singer featured on national television last Christmas Day — was killed Friday night in a crash on the West Side.
Elisa Gastellum was driving north on North Greasewood Road near West Speedway just after 11 p.m. in a 2001 Honda Civic when her car crossed over the center line, Tucson police said in a news release Saturday.
Gastellum's car collided with a southbound Civic being driven by a 19-year-old woman, said Officer Frank Amado, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
Gastellum was pronounced dead at the scene.
The other driver, whose name was not released, was taken to University Medical Center to be treated for injuries considered non-life-threatening, police said.
Both drivers were alone in their cars.
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Gastellum appeared on a Christmas Day special on Univision as a finalist in a mariachi contest called "El Tercer Festival de Mariachi," according to Arizona Daily Star archives.
The special was taped at Walt Disney World and Gastellum was selected as the runner-up in the competition, which drew more than 500 entries nationwide.
Gastellum had been singing mariachi music only since high school, when her brother signed her up for a mariachi class at Cholla High Magnet School, and she did not even speak Spanish.
Although she did not want to take the class, she stuck with it because she did not want to disappoint her brother, Xavier, or her father, Robert Gastellum, a former member of prominent mariachi groups Los Changuitos Feos and Mariachi Cobre.
Soon enough she would learn to love it, and in an interview last year, she told La Estrella de Tucsón, the Arizona Daily Star's Spanish-language edition, that her goal was to sing professionally.
A friend, Andrea Tellez, 21, said Saturday that Gastellum was preparing to take the stage once again in two weeks in San Antonio at a fan fest at the Tejano Music Awards.
"This is very devastating," Tellez said of her friend's death. "She was a super-duper talented girl. Everyone knew her for her singing voice and it is really unfortunate that we are not going to have her anymore."
Tellez last saw Gastellum in January when they performed together at the Gaslight Theatre with the band Los Gallegos, she said, but they had spoken over the phone since.
"She was a wonderful person," Tellez said. "She was always smiling, always making everybody happy. We are really going to miss her — she impacted a lot of people in such a short time."
Gastellum's grieving family did not feel up to commenting Saturday, a family member said.
"She was a super-duper talented girl. Everyone knew her for her singing voice and it is really unfortunate that we are not going to have her anymore."
Andrea Tellez, Friend
