The families of four sorority sisters struck and killed on California’s Pacific Coast Highway are suing the state and local governments over a notorious death trap locals call “Dead Man’s Curve.”
Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams — students of Pepperdine University and fellow sorority sisters — were walking along a stretch of beachside roadway in Malibu when a driver careened into the shoulder, killing the girls and injuring another student in October 2023.
The driver had been speeding and was charged with vehicular manslaughter, but the girls’ parents say he was not entirely to blame: The accident occurred along a well-known pedestrian killzone dubbed “Dead Man’s Curve” where residents and beachgoers walk inches from highway traffic.
Between 2013 and 2023, Dead Man’s Curve saw more than 3,000 collisions, 52 deaths, and 92 serious injuries, according to records presented in four separate lawsuits against the state of California, the California Department of Transportation, the California Coastal Commission, Los Angeles County, and the city of Malibu.
Along this one-mile stretch, flocks of visitors to a public beach “are forced to walk along unprotected shoulders, without sidewalks or crosswalks, and around parked vehicles,” the lawsuits contend.
“It’s like running the [interstate] freeway through a residential neighborhood,” Daniel Kramer, an attorney for one of the parents, told the Post.
Kramer said authorities were well aware of the carnage.
In 2015, the Malibu City Council approved a plan that called for 130 improvements to the Pacific Coast Highway, but to date only seven of those measures have been completed — despite more than $28 million having been sunk into the projects, according to records presented in the suits.
“They did nothing to protect pedestrians from known speeders that traveled that roadway and had caused numerous deaths and injuries,” Kramer said.
The driver who allegedly mowed down the four girls, 22-year-old Fraser Bohm, also struck Carlos Solloa, a Pepperdine student and co-plaintiff, who suffered “orthopedic and neurological injuries.”
Bohm is facing charges of murder and vehicular manslaughter.
Solloa and the other plaintiffs do blame Bohm for his actions, Kramer added, but their lawsuits are aiming to help make Dead Man’s Curve safer for everyone.
One of the victims, Peyton Stewart, would have graduated this year with a major in international business. She already had a job lined up with TikTok, according to her father, Barry Stewart.
Kranmer said Barry and his wife Carmela have been “pounding pavement to make this better,” making phone calls, attending public meetings, and lobbying state and local officials.
“It’s been devastating for them, but I’m in awe of the strength of these parents and how hard they are willing to fight,” Kramer said. “It’s bad when one death happens, but when you have 50 deaths over a ten year period, at some point you have to make a change.”
