BIG WIN FOR RICH KID WHO MOWS DOWN 4 PEPPERDINE SORORITY SISTERS: RPT

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. Four gorgeous coeds dead. Why? According to prosecutors, because Frazier bomb. Mode them down. Mode them down on the side of the road. Now, bomb pled not guilty to four counts of second degree murder and four counts of vehicular homicide with gross negligence. Now, the lawyers are also arguing that it's all the state's fault. But in the last days, a major defeat for the state, for the crime victims. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Many people call drunk driving or vehicular homicides an accident. It is no accident. It is a willing decision to drink, order the next drink and the next and the next, then get your keys, walk to your car, turn the ignition, reverse, drive and go out onto the highway. Those are multiple decisions made with intent. And that is what is required under the law for an intentional murder. Intent. As all of you legal eagles know, intent to commit a crime can be formed in the blink of an eye, a twinkling of a moment. As I always told juries in the time it takes to raise a gun and pull the trigger, that's time to form intent. It does not require a long drawn out plan such as poisoning someone bit by bit over weeks and months until they kill over dead. No, that is not the legal definition of intent. That may be the street definition, the street vernacular, but not under the law. In the last days, Frazier Baum has a big win. And the Pepperdine murder trial, a judge orders prosecutors to hand over his phone that he refused to unlock for police, even though prosecutors fear rightly that he could tamper with that phone. FYI, Baum, we can find out what you delete. Okay, remember Alex Murdogg, let that be a lesson to you. First of all, what happened when these four coeds were mowed down dead? Four beautiful young college sorority girls in their early 20s with bright futures set out for a fun night in Malibu, but in a shocking turn of events, that evening soon became a nightmare. Joining us tonight in addition to an all star panel are two dear friends of the victims, but first listen to this. The four females were pronounced dead by a scene. The Alpha Phi sisters arrived to Sigma Chi's party and are waiting outside when a red BMW speeding down the PCH, going at least 100 miles per hour, suddenly swears from the road and slams into parked cars. Partygoers scream as the parked cars are shoved into Neve, Payton, Asha and Deslyn. While bystanders call 911 and attend to two others injured in the crash, the BMW's driver gets out, stumbling away from the mangled cars. So don't bother telling me he was too out of it or injured to know what he is doing. Under the law, that is called flight. I'm sure veteran trial lawyer Brian Clape who will argue with me about that, what you heard earlier was from our friends at Malibu Times, four beautiful co-eds in the prime of their lives standing there, minding their own business, are mowed down at speeds of 104 MPH in a residential area. Now will a rich brat manage to escape justice? Having just hired a controversial defense attorney that helped Karen Reed get an acquittal? Again with me and I'll start panel but first I want to go to two very special guests. Bridget Thompson, roommate and Bestie with the Pepperdine Crash Victims and Coco Crandall, also roommate and best friend of the Crash Victims. You know to Coco Crandall, I don't call it an accident because when you put your foot to the pedal and exceed 104 MPH that's no accident. This is a crash. Tell me what you know Coco about the night of the deadly crash that stole your friends from you. Yeah I remember getting a call that night saying you know don't freak out there's been an accident and we think it was Ash's car. So I immediately drove down there. I was like they have no family, all their families out of state, you know they need someone and Bridget met me at the scene or as close to the scene as we could get but we just sat on the curb all night not really knowing what was going on but then you know news broke and once we hadn't heard from them for a couple hours because we were always in contact with our friends we knew that that something was wrong. I'm just imagining you Coco Crandall sitting there on the curb and I've got to tell you I've been to so many crime scenes and seen family and loved ones and best friends like you literally sitting on a curb because there's nowhere to go there's nowhere to sit and you just sit there kind of suspended in time and space just waiting it's like everything comes to a standstill everything seems to stop and you're just waiting waiting to hear something to know something to find out something Bridget Thompson also with us roommate and bestie of the crash victims Bridget what do you recall about that night? Yeah um for me I actually was supposed to be with them that night I had cheer practice that night and it ended up running a little late so I texted them and let them know that I'll just meet them there and as I was on my way I got a call as well and it was kind of the same along the same lines as Coco and just thought there was an accident and the girls aren't answering I tried calling all of them but none of them answered and like Coco said I went over to the scene and tried to do whatever I could but at that point it was just such a helpless feeling. Bridget when you got to the scene what did you observe? Well we couldn't get past like the police officer that was blocking us off so really it was just a bunch of stopped cars and a police officer standing there and then in the distance we saw a bunch of sirens ambulances but nothing other than that. Did anyone or could anyone tell you what had happened? Not directly there was things coming out in the news because there was quite a bit of news coverage on it and that's kind of how we found our information um we heard there was four dead six involved so we were praying that hopefully we only lost two of our friends with that math but unfortunately that just wasn't the case. Bridget did you try and question the police or try and ask anyone any questions? We definitely did but we knew that there wasn't really information that they could give us. What did you do? Who did you try to speak to? What time of the night was this? The crash occurred at 8 30 p.m. We were trying to speak to just the police officer standing you know blocking off the scene and then we were calling hospitals all night trying to see if we could locate them anywhere because at this point we didn't know that they had died at the scene and a hospital just wasn't necessary. Coco Crandall also joining us in addition to Bridget Thompson. Coco were you there sitting on the curb waiting for answers as well? Yeah yeah so Bridget and I happened to get there around the same time and we both were pleading to the officer to let us through to give us any insight on what was going on and we're like we know those are our friends in the scene we can track them we see they're not quite at the party um and yeah but like Bridget said they couldn't really give us any answers so we just sat there for hours you know calling hospitals and asking if they had our friends tracking them and probably I mean like Bridget said I don't know if I even fully remember a time but I think it was around 1 p.m. or 1 a.m. and then we went back to Pepperdine's campus up until you know 6 a.m. the next morning when more information was released. Who told the girls parents? Originally the school was the one to break it to them but the parents I mean you know mothers know when something's wrong and so a lot of the parents were also calling me and just saying hey you know what's going on where's my do you know where my daughter is whatever but the court it took a while for the coroner to confirm what happened so this will kind of fully you know tell the parents right away because they had to wait for the officials to confirm it. Bridget when did you first see or speak with the girls parents? I was in touch with some of them over the phone the next day so early in the morning on October 18th I someone came up to my room and said Neve's parents are downstairs they want to talk to you and I just broke down because that was like a realization to me. Oh my stars I cannot even imagine going down and trying to speak to the parents and the parents were there in the apartment the place that you guys shared? No I didn't go back to that immediately never went back to that apartment I briefly said bye but they had us in a hotel room on campus. When you first saw the parents what happened? It was hard they were obviously a mess beside themselves they were unclear of what had happened exactly so I tried to give them all the information that I knew but it was a situation that I wouldn't wish on anyone it was really really heartbreaking. Coco what do you recall? Yeah I like Bridget said remember the parents coming up they came so fast and I remember when Ash's parents came because they had flew from the east coast and there was just so much sadness and grief and heaviness all around and I just remember walking outside the hotel and meeting her in the parking lot and we just held each other and cried and I remember seeing her brothers and there was just a lot of tears shed and eventually we got to kind of all sit in a room together with you know all the parents and Bridget and I and some of our close friends as well and we tried to just you know tell their parents all amazing memories that we've had with them at school and and how wonderful they are and just share you know more about our their how Malibu was a happy place for them. It's just reminding me so much of when my fiance was murdered when you're trying to in those first hours and days after it it doesn't seem real your head knows it's real but the rest of you doesn't know it's real and you're like remembering events together things you did together I don't know if that's some sort of comfort or solace to your mind as you try to absorb what has happened. Bridget you stated you you did not go back to the apartment why? Oh I just couldn't I mean when I left there I could still picture them right now they were all sitting on the couch we were laughing giggling I told them I would see them after a cheer practice and we had so many amazing memories in that apartment we I mean we spent every second together so I couldn't imagine going back without them it was and when I did just because I felt like I needed that for my closure when I walked in our apartment it was clear that they were meant to come back it was clear they had their pajamas set out on their bed their lights still on they were they were meant to come back I just it was truly heartbreaking. The night you're at the crash scene girls did you see the defendant? No we did not. Crime stories with Nancy Grace A judge orders prosecutors to hand over a cell phone belonging to an accused killer the BMW driver Frazier Baum accused of mowing down four co-eds in a horrific crash on Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway. Now at the time of the arrest cop sees the phone after bomb 24 refused, spoil brat, refused to give them the passcode and unlock it, Neum Rolston age 20, Asha Ware 21, Peyton Stewart 21, Deslyn Williams 21 all dead. Prosecutors have been unable to get any information practically none from the phone because they didn't have the passcode they refused to return it claiming Baum could modify, alter or delete the data on the phone of course he can well the judge ordered it back to him anyway the thought of what those four girls and their families went through and are going through is pure HELL. Crime stories investigative reporter Dave Mack who is the defendant? His name is Frazier Baum he is a 23 year old rich kid growing up in privilege in Malibu in an 8.7 million dollar seaside mansion he was driving his 18th birthday present a BMW and he is a former athlete was a picture in high school and pretty privileged young man Nancy. Why do you say that I'm looking at a picture of him and apparently a shirtless selfie can we circle back to that please and he's got rings on every finger he's dripping in silver jewelry what did you say about a seven million dollar what? An 8.7 million dollar seaside mansion with a view of the Pacific Ocean a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean actually and by the way also a 700,000 dollar vacation place out near Palm Springs in this particular incident we lost four young people with a complete life ahead of them for really no reason other than complete and reckless disregard for the life of others so Neon Roestin, Peyton Stewart, Desalyn Williams and Asha Ware were seniors at Pepperdine and they were minding their own business just being in the neighborhood where their school is and they lost their life unnecessarily. Between two and a half to four and a half seconds prior to the collision the defendant's vehicle was at a speed of 104 miles and out. KTLA 5. Loved by all who knew them the four young women were more than best friends they were sisters bonded through Pepperdine's alpha feed while they were planning a glamorous night out one young Malibu man would change the course of their night. Exactly what happened the night that these girls were mowed down dead by a BMW traveling at rates of that we know of 104 mph they're standing on the side of the road they are not in the road waiting to enter a college party now they're dead four gorgeous young innocent beautiful girls they're gone name Peyton Asha Desalyn gone tonight we're analyzing why you know what I'm saying gone let me say it correctly why they're dead they're dead and don't you know their parents are wondering the same thing you just met two of their best friends that they lived with it could have been them too it didn't matter who was standing there it didn't matter how young or innocent or vivacious or how scrubbed in sunshine they were it didn't matter to the defendant who was driving his brand new BMW given to him by mommy and daddy at at least 104 mph on october 17th at around 8 30 p.m mr. Bond was allegedly speeding up at speeding at the speeds of 104 miles an hour on a 45 mile an hour zone on pch when he lost control of his v and w he allegedly crashed into a parked car before crashing into four pedestrians standing together on the side of the roadway all of the young women die at the scene to top it all off it's a fixed object out of everywhere you could drive your car you plow into a fixed object and then into four young girls and listen to this party host sigma kai brothers tackle the male driver to the ground and hold him there until police arrive i just saw some people taking him out of the car and holding him down on the curb and everything else and he was just yelling and screaming from our friends at ktla 5 joining me veteran trial lawyer defense attorney brian claypool managing partner claypool law firm author of break the code of silence raising my voice to protect our kids brian claypool he tried to get away that's called flight under the law so don't tell me he was out of his mind or he was depressed or he hit his he tried to get away brian that's damning under the law the guys had to tackle him and drag him back look this is a heartbreaking tragedy i mean we all have kids um but we do we can't measure how a young man is going to react to a traumatic situation it's not like he hopped in a buddy's car and was driving to the to the mexican border are you making that up why are you making that up it's not like he hopped in the buddy's car maybe he would have but he didn't have a buddy's car there so he did all he could do and he took the pat the pat and turner pat the street and turn the corner he tried to run isn't it true claypool that that is evidence of guilt flight is evidence of guilt when you try to get away from the crime scene as fast as you can right no you're right and that's why alan jackson has a tough case ahead too it's not just because he won the caron reed trial remember in that case there you couldn't even establish the the manner of death in that case brian claypool this is not about caron reed okay i'm talking about these four young girls and this guy trying to get away from this scene that's what i'm talking about so let me try to get the car back in the middle of the road kid you address him trying to leave the scene and i haven't even gotten to the crash yet yeah nancy look your flight is evidence of guilt doesn't matter how rich this kid is every defendant in a criminal case is entitled to do it to a defense whether we like that or not so what he's likely going to argue in defense of bone is is the following was there a potential malfunction in his car they're going to expect examine the car how did he go from 94 i'm sorry i just coughed up my hot tea a malfunction in the car like lead foot like his foot on the pedal what possible you know what i'm glad you said that because i happen to have an accident reconstructionist with me a renowned one which i'm gonna follow up with what you're saying but i like that go ahead spin me some more gold rumple stills can accident malfunction go ahead i can't write fast enough yeah well the the other argument there's previous lawyer made was he was involved in a road raid road rage incident so that's going to be investigated by alan jackson and if there was a road rage incident let me show you understand what you're talking about you're talking about the mystery vehicle the mystery vehicle that was chasing him that nobody's been able to find on any of the road cam that that car yeah that's the car right and that's what they'll look into it's gonna have to look really hard really hard i may take a little let me just say creative editing to find that mystery car that he's claiming something along the lines of he cut somebody off because he was texting and the guy got mad at him and so he boom ran away as fast as he could so he wouldn't be injured and then crashed and killed the four girls that's one of his arguments hey man real quick one other argument i think what that has to do with anything one of these other arguments my job is to tell you what a defense okay hold on dav mack joining me i want to follow up on everything claypool is saying because while i i don't buy any of it it could be a a defense that they try to raise a trial and the best thing the prosecution can do is be ready for that defense and be prepared to shoot it down when it rears its ugly head dav mack tell me about the mystery road rage incident there's a man named victor kalandra he's a resident of malibu for over 35 years he's driving his 2016 gmc 2500 pickup truck in close proximity to uh brazier bomb boom and he says that bomb was speeding and driving in and out of traffic and they actually caught up to one another right at sunset boulevard toward tepanga and that's when kalandra said he's trying to get bomb's attention at the light to tell him to slow down and bomb never acknowledges him and when the light turns green bomb accelerate with extreme i think is where the term was extreme acceleration up the road kalandra couldn't it was not he was right there with him but did not keep up with him as bomb takes off and it seconds later when the accident happens and it is kalandra who actually was yelling at bomb at the crash scene and that's who they're claiming was actually road rage when in fact he was telling him to slow down you know there's going to be footage of that dav mack what stretch of the road was the alleged road rage incident where now we're learning from the other driver he was trying to motion to boom to slow the hay down but what stretch of the road was this well we're dealing with you know stretch of the pch that is called dead man's curve which is actually a long stretch there but it's an area of the pch that is just beyond sunset boulevard toward tepanga and the erratic vehicle in this case being driven by bomb was at the los flores canyon stoplight that's where they caught up so it's a very short area where they actually caught up at the light where kalandra you know what you just did you just made me so happy mac which typically does not happen in a case like this but you just made me so happy because to joseph trembling joining me senior forensic engineer accident reconstruction with veritech consulting engineering trembling that was music to my ears because i heard pch pacificos highway and we all know it is dripping in traffic cams i heard dead man's curve which as i recall has signs posted uh the curvy nature like beware on dead man's curve and also the speed limit there is greatly greatly reduced because of the curves also i heard dav mack from crime stories state the intersection at los florida's canyon stoplight i bet you they have a traffic cam as well i mean i'm hoping they do because this could corroborate the witnesses story it could corroborate the defendant but i don't think it is what does all this mean to you trembling when i look into a case like this i start with the evidence of the scene itself and in this particular area it's a very windy part of the road and those winds in the road require certain steering inputs which would require a tent of driving essentially and i want to reiterate the fact that in this particular area there are cautionary signs indicating that a turn is ahead but the speed limit in that area is 45 miles per hour and i'll do the math for you he was going 59 over the speed limit that's more than double the speed limit chen blay i did a little research last night and we found out that in some of those spots it's actually 35 there's also some 45s but in spots where he was it's actually 35 mph yeah that's an incredible excess of speed i'd like to also point out that the dynamics of this impact suggests that he contacted three other cars uh those cars have significant damage there's actually photographs of those vehicles that he contacted and to be honest with you those cars probably diminish the impact severity that he produced against these four uh lovely young women so joseph chen blay and regular people talk what you're saying is the cars he crashed into to start with were a barrier a buffer to the victims and they would have suffered even more how did not crashed into those cars to start with 104 mph that's correct this is just such a severe impact the four females were pronounced dead the alpha fee sisters arrived to sigmachai's party and are waiting outside when a red bmw speeding down the pch going at least a hundred miles per hour suddenly swears from the road and slams into parked cars partygoers scream as the parked cars are shoved into neve, paten, asha and deslan while bystanders call 911 and attend to two others injured in the crash the bmw's driver gets out stumbling away from the mangled cars from malibu times in a chilling turn of events 22 year old frazier bowman tore through the infamous stretch of pacific coast highway known as dead man's curve doing over a hundred miles per hour in a 45 mile per hour zone he was behind the wheel of his luxurious bmw allegedly fleeing from a road rage altercation when his recklessness would create a nightmare no one could have imagined a bmw brand new to him just gifted to him by his parents joining me now in addition to karen stark renowned forensic psychologist dr kindle crowns joining us chief medical examiner tarant county that's for worth starva brand new hit podcast mayhem in the morgue he is a steamed lecturer at the brunette school of medicine at tcu and has performed literally thousands thousands of autopsies accidents natural causes suicides and homicides including vehicular homicides dr kindle crowns thank you for being with us the girls standing there minding their own business waiting to go into i believe uh bridget and coco it was a sigma chi party was that where they were headed yes it was a mixer it was like an event for our sorority it wasn't a party okay what's the difference um there was no drinking involved okay i neither had to be a difference because when you put the sigma chi's and alpha fees together in one place it sounds like a party to me so why coco krandall were they waiting outside to go in so they weren't well from our understanding they weren't necessarily waiting they actually had parked their car if you're familiar with pch you only can park on the street so park their car got out of their car and were walking to the house to go to the mixer and in the process of walking that's when they were hit got it got it so they're walking into a mixer wow okay dr kindle crowns i just wanted to make sure i understood what they were doing you know another reason i wanted to know dr crowns because so often somehow the victims turn out to be the bad guys in the media and with the defense no offense brian claypool i know you do everything you can to help your client but dr kindle crowns they were a not drinking they were be on the side of the street walking into the sigma chi house for a non-alcoholic mixer i just want to be very clear all dressed up and their party outfits having all gotten ready together back at their place they all shared with our guests i mean dr kindle crowns you know what time it is right i'm looking at colleges right now for the twins and hearing something like this just pushes me over the edge dr kindle crowns what happened to these girls when they were hit by a couple of tons of metal at 104 miles per hour so what happens when a car is going at a very high rate of speed and it hits a pedestrian uh initially the bumper comes into contact at about your knee level and folds your knee and causing your thigh to strike the upper portion of the front of the car and that pitches the body onto the hood the head hits the hood or the windshield and at that high rate of speed the body will flip up over the car and then fly through the air and land on the ground now one of the other things when you're having someone drive at that high rate of speed is you'll get traumatic amputations where the legs will be severed from the point of impact and then just kind of spread out all over the roadway you also might see depending on their height uh amputations of the hip area bodies cut in half and even potentially from the speed with the head hitting the windshield got decapitation there'll be massive internal injuries fractures of all the extremities ribs pelvis and then the the organs themselves will be ruptured or lacerated as well it's actually high high speed velocity pedestrians accidents are very gruesome events dr. Kiddler crowns how many cases like this have you worked so pedestrians struck by vehicles are fairly common we see them at least probably once a week but high speed pedestrians struck by vehicles are very are very rare because mostly most of the time pedestrians aren't on the highway and most people aren't driving their cars at 104 miles per hour when they hit a pedestrian i'm glad you mentioned that last comment i'm going to circle back to you dr. kindle crowns for more of an in-depth analysis of what the victims may have lived through but brian claypool joining us veteran trial lawyer managing partner claypool law firm joining us out of california did you hear what he said very rarely are victims walking on a highway where high speed crashes normally happened this was not a highway and they were walking along the edge of a pedestrian street where the mph was 35 yeah hey nancy i get that but i think what al and jackson's going to do in this case is he's going to go after the county of los angeles and or the city of malibu i think it's likely the county for failing to adequately maintain that road what do i mean by that your entire show you've mentioned probably four or five times dead man's curve it was also called hell's corner the county's on notice that this is a dangerous curve why wasn't there better lighting that's what he's going to argue and he's going to argue also a a was there a guardrail here i don't think there was and if there wasn't there should have been and that might have minimized the impact and this this tragedy might have been avert well at least you're going down swinging you're going to try and blame bad lighting and no guardrail and push it all off on the county okay that sounds more like a civil lawsuit claim where you're trying to distribute the monetary damages i'm talking about a criminal trial for vehicular homicide i'm sure claypool that you are familiar with the abandoned and malignant heart theory under the law which rises too i would like this to be prosecuted as murder not vehicular homicide because of the abandoned and malignant heart theory malice murder murder one can be proven in many different ways one is of course when you say i'm going to kill you claypool i've had it and i take a gun hold it up and shoot you dead okay that is clear extrinsic and implicit evidence of intent to murder there is another theory called abandoned and malignant heart what does that mean here's an example you drive 104 miles an hour through let's just say a street festival that's been blocked off where people are selling food and homemade items and and crafts and there are 200 people there on a sunday afternoon drinking lemonade and eating kebabs and suddenly here you come claypool 104 mph plowing through the street festival and you kill people that shows an abandoned heart in other words you have a heart which is abandoned of empathy for other people and you do something so insanely reckless it equals murder that would be my argument to this jury and you're trying to blame bad lighting i respect that well look look i respectfully disagree on on that that my argument applies to a civil case you know as well as i do you've got to prove causation even in the murder case here and what jackson's going to argue is there can be concurrent concurrent causation and here's another point in order to prove murder in the situation california not to prove causation what's called implied malice not that he intended to to drive over these young women you've got to prove that he that he he he acted in such conscious disregard for the lives of other that others that he knew that it was likely that these young women would die and what jackson's going to argue is that wasn't in his frame of mind that he didn't intend on doing that didn't intend on trying to buddy again you just made me so happy because you said he didn't intend it but isn't the black and white letter of the law which will be read to the jury in jury instructions just after closing arguments that the law presumes the defendant intends the natural consequences of his act isn't that true yeah i i'm not sure if that's a jury instruction in california you could try to make that argument as a prosecutor let me refresh your recollection it is the law which you what you want to do is well we that you want to do the natural consequence of your act look look if this case goes to trial boom is going to have to testify to try to refute wait let's assume you're correct nancy then he's going to have to testify to tell a jury what was going on in his mind at the time of this incident and that's really what jackson is going to have to do i don't care what's in his mind why do i care what he's thinking you should care because there is a the first question jackson is going to ask is you intend on driving off the side of the road to kill these young ladies that that is relevant in this trial to refute your abandon heart theory it is nancy uh abandon heart means you act with such gross negligence with a malignant heart that you kill others what you're thinking does not go as to why it's called negligence you're not thinking hey i want to kill four girls all dressed up in their party dresses to go to the sigmicae mixer you don't have to think that if i go into the mall of america with an uzi and start firing i don't have to know who my victims are i don't have to me to kill them that is an abandond malignant heart and that is murder but i just looked it up just to make sure i was right and guess what i am the law presumes that you intend the natural consequences of your act and it's called in your jurisdiction non-target offense liability you don't it just like i said if i take a piece of thin china so fine you can see through it and i throw it to the ground wow what did i intend to do break it when you drive under and for nph in a residential area where people are by the road the natural consequence of your act is a crash let me ask coco krandall and bridgett tobson first to you bridgett have you ever been in that area before have you ever seen the sigmicae house yes absolutely and is it a residential area what's around it are there homes yes it's 100 percent a residential area it's lined on both sides with homes are there other fraternity homes sorority homes on that street there is one but it's not like a a greek row or anything but there's definitely residential so there are private residences yes so good luck with that brian claypool that there needed to be a guard rail to prevent this horrific deadly crash you're gonna blame a guard rail or bad lighting oh i can't wait well one other thing i would do if i'm jackson is you i again i disagree as to the front as the state of mind a bomb i think you have to ask him why did he go from 93 miles an hour to 104 miles an hour that gets to your your defense i mean if he has some rational explanation as to why the car accelerated 10 miles an hour in a short amount of time he might be able to get over this abandoned technical legal term he's an a-hole did they teach you that at harvard law school an a-hole they defended new his actions were dangerous to human life and deliberately acted with consciousness regard for human life committing four counts of implied malice murder in this case i can't say this enough we have to realize that when we're driving a car we have the potential of killing others when we're driving at 100 plus miles an hour on a 45 mile per hour zone the only reasonable conclusion that kid arrive out of that behavior is harming others i told her that the greatest threat to her young vibrant life and the future goal was a motor vehicle accident which is still the leading cause of death in her age group at that time i asked her that seems i've lost the argument you were just seeing desmond's dad desmond williams speaking and that's my friends at pepperdawning university youtube trying to make sense of a nonsensical tragedy he's one of eight parents devastated tonight while we're on air they're at home sitting in their dims and around their supper tables looking at an empty spot maybe they're sitting in the girl's bedroom maybe they're driving by their apartment thinking about what was i want to go to two very special guests but first to karen start joining us forensic psychologist renowned tv radio trauma expert you can find her at karen stark dot com she has dealt with so many survivors trying to make sense of a new normal karen please what is your advice to these two girls joining us today i think that they need to do exactly what they're doing mancy they have to keep talking about this i'm so glad they're on the show i'm very sorry that this happened but the more they get involved the more they talk about what this person did the the speeding all of the neglect the better they're going to feel it will never ever go away unfortunately don't we know that i think everyone knows that that hole in the heart never closes but over time it will get better just keep spreading the message that this is terrible and should never have happened and remember your friends girls when i first moved to new york to start off at court tv karen and i would watch trials together in a dark studio and we would talk about what the victims had gone through do you remember that karen all those years 11 years in those dark studios and she's right it it won't go away it changes you don't cry every single day but probably right now that's still your situation and karen please jump in whenever you have a suggestion bridget and koko tell me about what life was like living with these beautiful girls first to you bridget uh yeah life was nothing short of perfect when i met them my life literally changed they were the most amazing people i have ever met and i think i will ever meet they made every day a better one they knew how to pick me up when i was down they were always a shoulder to cry on it was it was just the best to live with them to wake up to their good mornings every morning and to go to bed hearing their good nights i just miss it a lot you know it struck me bridget that when either you or koko went back to the apartment i believe it was you their pj's were still lying out on the bed where they placed them to hop into when they got home yeah they were koko tell me about a typical day that you would have waking up with these beautiful girls yeah it was i mean it literally felt like a dream every morning getting to wake up with them they are like bridget said they are the bestest of friends and and i don't think we'll ever find friends like that again they're truly i don't even think most people are lucky enough to have friends like we did in their whole lifetime um but we would wake up and we always had a playlist that we would play in the mornings and we would wake up open the curtains let the sun shine in just sit in our pj's make breakfast play music we lived obviously in a great area so we'd walk to the beach a lot of time either on walks um along zoom a beach or at point doom so it's a lot of time in the water um just swimming around and then i feel like we always would go get dinner at our favorite italian place in malibu and i mean it's such a simple day but any day with them whether we were doing nothing or anything and everything was just such a dream and i know well i can speak for bridget and i like we would give anything just to have one more day with them do you ever dream about them yeah absolutely i mean so after the accident because i lived with desmond and bridget live with the rest um bridget and i moved in together afterwards into a different apartment um and would be like we both had dreams and it felt so real that both of us were like we don't want to ever wake up because we just want to keep dreaming and some of them felt so real some of them were dreams about them coming back and telling us like hey we're okay we're in we're in a spot and you know it happened so fast and like i want you guys to know we're okay and so bridget and i would just wake up and sometimes just like cry together from our dreams because they felt so real but then we'd wake up and it's just hard to you know keep going in life without them you know i feel like we were just in a really big denial stage for a really really long time but dr kindle crowns it wasn't that way it wasn't just all so fast they laid there and died you talked about severed limbs you talked about horrific impact at 104 mph they didn't just die just like that well that is very true dancy it really all depends on where they got hit and what was initially damaged now of course the initial impact that could sever limbs could cause a person to go flying over the car but not hit anything else so their head would be intact and they would be laying there with the dramatically amputated limb bleeding out on the roadway it really all just depends on what organ system got hit and at what point was their head engaged or their neck engaged or how quickly they may have died and it can be one of those situations in which just the lower extremities were severed or crushed or whatever or their pelvis was crushed and they just laid there slowly bleeding out and nobody could help them because of the amount of damage that was done crime stories with nancy grace an LA superior court judge thomas rubenson made a decision and ruled that the LA sheriff's department has to hand over a cell phone to a lab of defense hired experts who will download data that phone handed over to the defense the judge also ordered the district attorney to turn over to the defense thousands of pages of accident reports witness statements info on the 128 non fatal crashes that happened near the scene of the deadly crash going back 10 years now why did they do that i believe the defense is going to argue that it wasn't their client's fault that he killed four people it was the road's fault that the engineers had laid it out negligently and because of the accidents that should prove it's not their client's fault to kill four people okay let's see how the jury feels about that let me refresh everyone's recollection joseph trimley uh senior forensic engineer xary constructionist at veritec consulting how do you go into this scene knowing what you know having heard bridgett and coco and karen and dr crowns how do you go in and perform a hard cold evaluation that will hold up in court to explain to a jury what happened what do you do all right to look at the facts i have to look at the evidence and i think it's fair to say in this situation at that excessive speed this was no longer a car accident at that rate of speed and the collision that occurred would cause severe damage i mean he's probably lucky himself that he didn't have any injuries from this this is so severe and you know one of the nice things we have in this situation is so much evidence and so much data in particular the data from the vehicle itself which will corroborate his speed it'll corroborate his pre-impact navigation and whether or not he attempted any sort of maneuver to avoid this collision so there's a lot of evidence that's going to be presented at trial and i think it's going to be very uh elucidating for this particular crash trimley what do you mean you're going to get a lot of evidence from the car itself i got a lot of evidence in the alex murdoch case from his nav his navigation system which was awesome uh you can't really argue with the nav system in your own car what evidence are you talking about well that's a that's a great question and there is a lot of evidence from a navigation unit individually but in addition to that modern cars are constantly recording data every car out there it's a federal mandate that they record data and that particular data is tied to the airbag system in the event of an airbag deployment the car decides whether or not to deploy the airbags based on things like vehicle speed steering inputs breaking inputs things like that and that data is stored on the car that can be retrieved in this particular crash that data was retrieved by the responding officers and that is most likely the way that they determine the impact speed and then also the way that they determine the pre-impact acceleration that was done by mr bomb and his apparently completely absent attempt to avoid this crash trim boy i know that the arriving officer saw skid marks and smoke what does that mean okay that that may actually suggest a small maneuver or breaking an attempt to potentially mitigate the crash i'd have to look into that even more if it was a skid mark that would suggest potentially maybe a steering input or a braking input to decelerate slightly before impact however that also kind of depends on on how the crash unfolded itself the data will provide a very solid basis for all of that and the nice thing about that data is that you know it's been admitted in many different court cases it's very solid it's hard to argue that data i'm sure mr jackson will probably make a very honest attempt to uh to kind of reduce the credibility of that data but it's it's just very solid it's been used a lot and it's it's a very valuable piece of evidence here to bridget topson joining us roommate and bestie with the crash victims do you ever dream about them yes i have had many dreams with them and it is an amazing feeling to feel like you get to be with them one more time but it's hard to wake up and now it's just not the truth in the dreams what's happening what are they saying um sometimes they'll reassure us that they're okay um sometimes they'll be like it's okay i'm i'm okay now and i'll try to convince them to stay and they'll be like i have to go back i have to go back it's a really crazy feeling karen stark what do these mean what do these mean what's happening in the girls psyches it's a case of them trying to preserve the friendship with the girls and this is actually wonderful because a lot of people when they lose someone they want to dream about them you have a chance to revisit even to say goodbye which i'm going to suggest to both of you that you tell yourself you want to do that when you have the dream again to say goodbye to them and the whole idea of being with them again it's all beautiful and very very fortunate i'm glad they're having those dreams i know that when you wake up it may be upsetting but take it like a message you know that your friends have come and they're visiting with you pepperdine university seniors neve roulston patin steward asha weir and deslan williams four alpha fee sisters get ready for a sigma chi party at their apartment the girls are incredibly close after moving in together sophomore year the women connected freshman year and became inseparable the pepperdine victims are a star athlete future vet tiktok intern and an aspiring writer neve a 20 year old business student was an excellent gymnast cheerleader and pole valter who competed in the cih championship deslan was on a pre-veterinary track with deep empathy for animals patin spent her sophomore year at pepperdine's london campus landing her dream internship with tiktok before returning to campus for senior year asha was studying writing and passionate about the dynamic landscapes of the fashion and music industries four beautiful young girls died october 17 when bomb driving a red bmw his mommy and daddy gave him for his 18th birthday smashed into three stationary vehicles fixed objects in the parking lane on the highway next to where the girls were walking minding their own business the speed limit was 45 miles an hour but the black box from his bmw the toy his parents gave him showed he accelerated from 93 mph to 104 mph just two seconds before he mowed the girls down that is not the highway's fault that is bomb's fault according to prosecutors but i guarantee you these parents have spent every dime possible to get high-powered lawyers to beat the rap will it work we wait as justice unfolds nancy grace signing off goodbye friend this is an i heart podcast guaranteed human