An affluent California man accused in a deadly Malibu crash that killed four Pepperdine University students is now headed toward a murder trial tied to the devastating Pacific Coast Highway collision.
Fraser Bohm, 24, has been charged with four counts of second-degree murder and four counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in the deaths of Niamh Rolston, 20, Asha Weir, 21, Peyton Stewart, 21, and Deslyn Williams, 21, who were killed in the 2023 wreck.
Bohm’s legal team made an eleventh-hour push to keep the case from going before a jury, urging the court to dismiss the charges based on what they described as “powerful new evidence,” FOX 11 reports.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas Rubinson rejected that request on Monday and scheduled Bohm’s murder trial to begin on September 8.
According to prosecutors, Bohm was behind the wheel of his BMW on October 17, 2023, traveling at 104 mph when he slammed into three parked vehicles near the spot where the four sorority members were walking. The stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, known locally as “Deadman’s Curve,” has a posted speed limit of 45 mph.
Investigators have pointed to data from the car’s black box, which allegedly showed Bohm accelerated from 93 mph to 104 mph just two and a half seconds before impact. The BMW had reportedly been given to him on his 18th birthday as part of his parents’ divorce settlement.
Defense attorneys for Bohm have countered that he was not recklessly speeding for its own sake, but was attempting to escape what they have characterized as a road rage encounter moments before the crash.
During Monday’s hearing, high-profile defense attorney Alan Jackson also argued that an April pretrial proceeding—intended to decide whether enough evidence existed to move forward—had been tainted, as he pressed the judge to throw out the most serious charges.
Fraser Bohm, 24, will face trial for the murders of four Pepperdine University students
Prosecutors have claimed Bohm was driving his BMW at 104mph on October 17, 2023 when he plowed into three parked vehicles near where the four students were walking. The victims included Deslyn Williams (left) and Niamh Rolston who were sorority sisters and close friends
Peyton Stewart (left) and Asha Weir were also members of Alpha Phi at Pepperdine University – and were pronounced dead alongside their two friends at the scene
‘It’s not a motion about whether or not the collision was devastating,’ Jackson said, according to NBC 4 Los Angeles. ‘Everyone in this courtroom knows that it was. It’s not a motion about whether speed is inherently dangerous. It is, we can all agree on that.
‘But implied malice murder requires more than just tragedy and danger. It requires proof that the natural and probable consequences of that act, and that act alone, as one court put it, is nearly certain to cause death.’
The judge, though, ultimately sided with prosecutors who have previously argued that the four college girls were killed ‘because of the defendant’s wanton disregard for the high probability of death.’
Bohm was driving at ‘over 100mph…he had to negotiate around other vehicles that were going slower,’ Deputy District Attorney Nathan Bartos said at a previous hearing last November.
‘The defendant understood that what he was doing was dangerous and he is coming up with excuses about what occurred.
‘The defendant knew that his vehicle was out of control – how could he not have known. And he clearly understood that excessive speed can result in death.’
Bartos also noted that Bohm’s speed just before the crash, exceeded the 45mph limit by 231 percent.
‘He was losing control of his vehicle, yet he continued to increase his speed,’ the lawyer said last year. ‘There is an abundance of evidence to justify murder charges.’
Footage obtained by KTLA from the night of the crash show the mangled remains of his red BMW which he received as an 18th birthday present as part of his wealthy parents’ divorce settlement
Bohm is pictured standing with his father Chris and mother Brooke outside the courthouse after a judge told the court that there was ‘sufficient evidence’ to warrant the murder charges and that there was ‘no doubt’ he was driving around 100mph
Yet Bohm, who lives in Malibu, has insisted that the deadly crash happened when ‘some guy in a white car’ swerved into his lane, hitting his driver’s side mirror, while he was being ‘chased in a road rage incident.’
‘He was reacting to being chased, clipped by another vehicle just before the accident. There was no intent. Perhaps negligence, not murder,’ Jackson argued at the previous hearing.
‘It was tragic, it was emotional, it was devastating. But it was not murder.
‘Did he intentionally disregard the possibility of causing death – No.’
The defense attorneys also claimed that eyewitness reports of the crash ‘contradicted each other’, there was ‘conflicting’ evidence about the speed he was driving and video footage from surveillance cameras close to the scene was ‘glitchy’ and unreliable.
Judge Rubinson, though, noted last year that Bohm had told the preliminary hearing about two friends who died in a high-speed crash and said he knew the dangerous highway well.
‘By his own admission he knew how dangerous speeding was because his two best friends had been killed in a high-speed accident.
‘He knew this stretch of PCH like the back of his hand. He knew it was called Deadman’s Curve – so he must have known how dangerous it was…to drive at 100mph.’
In court on Monday, famed defense attorney Alan Jackson claimed that a pretrial hearing in April – designed to determine whether there is enough evidence for a defendant to stand trial – was compromised
The judge also noted that Bohm’s ‘driving erratically from lane to lane’ caused one driver who pulled up beside him at an earlier traffic light that night to tell him ‘slow down before you hurt somebody.’
He added that, ‘There is no evidence of a road rage incident before the crash.
‘The defendant knew how dangerous it was to drive at 100mph…that his actions had a high degree of probability of causing death.’
In addition to the murder trial, Bohm is facing civil lawsuits filed by the parents of all four girls.
They had been seniors at Pepperdine’s Seaver College of Liberal Arts, where they were members of the Alpha Phi Sorority. They were due to graduate with the class of 2024 and later were awarded their Pepperdine degrees posthumously.
