Background: News footage of Fraser Bohm during a court appearance (KABC). Inset (clockwise from top left): Peyton Stewart (LinkedIn), Asha Weir and Niamh Rolston (Instagram), Deslyn Williams (Instagram).
A California man facing murder charges in connection with a fatal car crash that killed four college students has failed in his attempt to get those charges dismissed.
Fraser Bohm, 24, is charged with four counts of murder and four counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in connection with an October 2023 crash that took the lives of Pepperdine University students Niamh Rolston, 20, Peyton Stewart, 21, Asha Weir, 21, and Deslyn Williams, 21. Bohm, who was 22 years old at the time of the crash, was allegedly driving 59 mph over the 45 mph limit in an area that is known locally as “Dead Man”s Curve,” according to reporting by local news site MyNewsLA.com.
On the night of the crash, Bohm allegedly “lost control” of his BMW and rammed into three parked vehicles on a stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, where the four women were walking on the shoulder after getting out of a vehicle. The parked vehicles fatally struck all four women, who were declared dead at the scene.
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Defense attorneys representing Bohm argued that their client was fleeing a “road rage incident” just before 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 17, 2023, which caused him to drive at a high speed away from the other driver. Bohm’s current legal team, Alan Jackson, Kelly Quinn, and Jacqueline Sparagna, wrote in their motion to dismiss the murder charges that prosecutors “simply hope that this court is so blinded by the tragic nature of this accident that it forgets the People need to prove legal standards. This absence alone should be fatal to the People’s case.”
Local ABC affiliate KABC reported that the other driver, Victor Calandra, had retained his own lawyer, who told the court on Monday that the “fantasy that he was chasing after the defendant… it’s ludicrous.” Prosecutors have indicated that they could have Calandra testify against Bohm as a witness to his allegedly reckless driving.
Prosecutors countered in their opposition to the motion that “the defendant drove 59 miles per hour over the [45 mph] speed limit on what is essentially a residential street,” and “[t]here is no excuse which can justify the danger he posed at those speeds, certainly not trying to flee possible road rage, a contention for which there was no evidence, nor did the defendant ever mention it to deputies.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, Bohm was rearrested on Oct. 24, 2023, after his initial arrest on the night of the crash. He posted $4 million bail after being charged with four counts of murder and four counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. His original bail was set at $8 million and was later reduced. A request to reduce his bail a second time was denied, and Bohm’s family reportedly drained their finances to get him released, according to The Malibu Times.
In Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, Judge Thomas Rubinson denied the defense’s motion to dismiss the murder charges. Bohm is scheduled to appear in court again in January, when the judge is expected to announce a date to put Bohm on trial.
Rolston, Stewart, Weir, and Williams were sorority sisters and college seniors who were expected to graduate in 2024. Pepperdine University honored them with posthumous degrees.
Matt Naham contributed to this report.
