A speeding BMW allegedly killed four Pepperdine University seniors who were walking in Malibu, California, Tuesday night along a treacherous stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, police said.
The university identified the victims as Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams, who were all students at Seaver College School of the Arts.
“To the students who loved, lived with, and were in community with the departed members of our Pepperdine family, my heart is broken with yours,” Pepperdine’s president, Jim Gash, said in a statement Wednesday. “I join you in your grief as we process this profound loss.”
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Officials with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said at a press conference Wednesday that the four students were killed, and two others were injured at 8:30 p.m. when 22-year-old Fraser Michael Bohm lost control of his dark-colored BMW as he drove westbound on the Pacific Coast Highway.
He swerved onto the shoulder, hitting three parked vehicles which then slammed into the four nearby students, Sheriff’s Capt. Jennifer Seetoo told reporters.
The women were pronounced dead at the scene.
Bohm was arrested for vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and released pending the outcome of the investigation, officials said. A DUI probe is also underway. The driver sustained minor injuries.
The collision occurred roughly four miles north of the campus on a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway known as “Dead Man’s Curve” for the number of accidents there.
Rolston, a Los Angeles native, was a business major at Pepperdine and was set to graduate with the class of 2024, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Stewart was vice president of finance at Alpha Phi and was also pursuing a degree in business, her LinkedIn profile says.
Weir’s LinkedIn page says she was from Harleysville, Pennsylvania, was the executive administrator of Alpha Phi and was pursuing a degree in English.
Fox News Digital was not immediately able to verify Williams’s professional profile.
The Santa Monica Observer reported that the four slain students were sorority sisters, and three of them were roommates. Alpha Phi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Indeed, one of the greatest mysteries of life is when and why our time on this earth is cut short,” Gash said in his statement. “In such times, we hold firm to our faith in the God who sustains and nourishes us even when—and especially when—we experience life’s most significant losses.”
