The stretch of Pacific Coast Highway a few miles up the coast from Pepperdine University has a nickname that locals do not use fondly: Dead Man’s Curve. On a Tuesday night in October 2023, it earned the name again.
At about 8:30 p.m., a 22-year-old driver named Fraser Michael Bohm lost control of his dark BMW. He swerved onto the shoulder and hit three parked vehicles, which slammed into a group of young women standing nearby, Sheriff’s Capt. Jennifer Seetoo told reporters the next day. Four of them died at the scene. Two others were hurt. Bohm had minor injuries.
The university named the dead as Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams, all seniors at Seaver College and members of the Alpha Phi sorority. The Santa Monica Observer reported that three of them were roommates. The crash happened roughly four miles north of campus.
Arrest, release, and a university in grief
Bohm was arrested for vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. He was released pending the investigation, and a DUI probe was under way. Years later, authorities say he was driving 104 mph in a 45-mph zone.
“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,” university president Jim Gash said in a statement. The school held a prayer service the next morning and said it was planning a memorial for each student.
Rolston, from Los Angeles, was a business major set to graduate in 2024. Stewart, vice president of finance at Alpha Phi, was also studying business. Weir, of Harleysville, Pennsylvania, was the chapter’s executive administrator and was pursuing an English degree.
Three years on, a road under pressure
As Bohm’s trial approaches, Malibu is taking stock. The city says more than 60 people have been killed by cars on PCH since 2010. Residents had warned for years about its blind turns, narrow shoulders and speeding.
Steve Uhring, then Malibu’s mayor, remembers the night vividly. “It was a solemn evening of everybody getting together and saying, this is not what we want our city to become,” he said. Of Bohm he was blunt: “He killed four people. You’ve got to pay for that, period.”
Damian Kevitt, who founded the safety coalition Streets Are For Everyone and co-organizes the Fix PCH movement, said the deaths changed how Caltrans treats the road. The agency now calls conditions there “a priority and emergency situation,” which lets advocates bypass some of the usual rules. “They are doing things faster, and that’s because there’s been so much pressure,” Kevitt said. He is not under any illusions about the pace. “Caltrans is a very slow-moving beast.”
Kevitt and others also pushed state lawmakers to pass Senate Bill 1297, which lets Malibu install up to five automated speed cameras along the corridor. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it in 2024. The cameras are now up. In a September 2026 test, they recorded about 100,000 speeding violations over nine days at four locations, with roughly 86% in eastern Malibu. The city pushed back a planned warning period to November to make installation adjustments and finish a traffic study.
For some families, none of this is new. Michel and Ellen Shane lost their 13-year-old daughter Emily on PCH in 2010 and started the Emily Shane Foundation. “When Emily died, we reached out to Caltrans to give them some suggestions of how they could have saved her life,” Michel Shane said. “They walked the site with us, they did measurements, and then they basically sent us a go away letter.”
Friends call the four women “Our Girls.” Bridget Thompson, who roomed with Rolston, Stewart and Weir, said the apartment was left with three empty spaces. The crash came three days before her birthday, which the women had planned to fill with surprises.
Sources
- 4 Pepperdine students killed in Malibu collision by speeding BMW driver: officials
- 4 Pepperdine University seniors fatally mowed down by out-of-control BMW driver in Malibu
- Three years after Pacific Coast Highway crash, ‘Our Girls’ legacy continues to drive push for safer roads
