PCH Rollover Accident Site Continues to Draw Visitors

MEMORIAL—Those who knew the 17-year-old killed in last week’s crash have left flowers, photos and messages at the accident site on Pacific Coast Highway west of Trancas Canyon Road. A paddle-out in honor of Cody Murphy was held at noon on Sunday, April 13, at Zuma Beach

• DUI and 90 mph Speed Deemed Factors in Driver’s Death

BY HANS LAETZ

Small groups of teenagers pull over to the side of the road. Most of them are 16, 17 or 18 years old. They speak readily with anyone who asks why they are there. They lost a friend, most of them say. They don’t always know the specifics of what has happened, but they understand the finality of death.
A 17-year-old motorist was driving 90 miles per hour, under the influence of alcohol and possibly marijuana, when the car he was driving cartwheeled down Pacific Coast Highway above Broad Beach on April 8.
A 17-year-old Camarillo girl who was riding in the back seat with two male passengers, also 17, remained in serious condition this week with head injuries but recent medical updates reported signs of improvement.
A fourth male 17-year-old sitting in the front passenger seat, walked away from the crushed car almost without a scratch. It has not yet been determined whether he, or any of the others, were wearing seat belts.
A large, empty bottle of Jägermeister, a potent German liqueur, and a marijuana bong and container were found in the upside-down wreckage of the 2007 Subaru Impreza that shut down PCH above Broad Beach Road’s western access for over 10 hours. Deputies are still awaiting toxicology results to determine what role the substances played in the crash.
Cody James Murphy, a junior at Newbury Park High School, was behind the wheel of the vehicle as it spun out of control, went up an embankment, flipped end-over-end, and then landed on its roof.
Murphy’s devastated parents arrived at the crash site early Wednesday morning to identify their son’s body.
Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Traffic Sgt. Philip Brooks said the five, all students at Newbury Park High School, went to see a hip-hop concert in Hollywood but missed it.
“They went down to the Santa Monica Pier and drank their Jägermeister there,” Brooks said. A large, empty and intact bottle with its cap on was found in the car after it was flipped over in the morning.
“Also, we found a marijuana smoking device, a large blue glass pipe thing about a foot long, with hooks and curves, as well as an empty marijuana canister from a medicinal marijuana dispensary,” Brooks said. “It had a blue label from a dispensary, but it was empty.”
Murphy was at the wheel driving northwest from Trancas when the car drifted to the right just past the western Broad Beach road intersection at 10:20 p.m., Brooks said.
“I could see where he got a good centrifugal spin, he went up the embankment. The car then flipped head over heels several times, went back on the highway on its roof, and spun around on its roof before coming to a rest” in the left of the two northbound lanes.
The road was closed to northbound traffic until 8:20 a.m., Wednesday. Deputies were using laser beams, laptop computers and a sophisticated accident-reconstruction computer program to measure skid marks, points of impact and local survey points.
Damage to the front and rear ends of the car corroborated that it had flipped over end-to-end several times. Scattered about the roadway after the accident were backpacks, schoolbooks and a nearly new Dodgers cap.
Grief counselors were sent to the Newbury campus to assist students in dealing with the loss of a youth who was involved in school sports and viewed as popular.
The Subaru’s owner, the stepfather of one of the injured boys, told Brooks that the wreckage might become part of a temporary exhibit to educate students on the perils of drunk driving.