A judge declined Monday to dismiss murder charges against a man prosecutors say was speeding when he crashed into three parked vehicles on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu in 2023 — killing four Pepperdine University sorority sisters.
The case against Fraser Michael Bohm was set for trial on Sept. 8.
Attorneys for Bohm argued Monday that the implied malice murder allegations in the four murder counts are unsupported because prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence at the preliminary hearing to establish the required components of the charge.
Implied malice requires proof that the defendant committed an act — in this case purportedly driving at an excessive speed — whose natural and probable consequences carried a high probability of death — and that the defendant knew the risk and consciously disregarded it.
The defense alleged that at the time of the preliminary hearing, prosecutors possessed evidence refuting the state’s own proposition that Bohm’s alleged speeding on the 0.8-mile stretch of PCH where the crash occurred carried a high chance of death — and allegedly withheld the data from the defendant’s attorneys.
“The data shows fatal collisions are rare” over a 10-year period on PCH between Carbon Canyon and Las Flores Canyon roads, the precise location of the fatal crash, defense attorney Alan Jackson told the court, suggesting that the defendant could not have expected that death could potentially result from his alleged driving speed.
Jackson also alleged that prosecutors suppressed evidence involving Bohm’s cell phone.
At the conclusion of a nearly 90-minute hearing, Judge Thomas Rubinson denied the motion to dimiss the murder charges, after telling attorneys the first thing that had to be decided was whether data favorable to Bohm was in fact kept from the defense team prior to the preliminary hearing.
Rubinson determined that the state had provided sufficient information to enable the defense to obtain official traffic safety, collision history, governmental reports, and enforcement activity along PCH without having to lobby prosecutors for the data.
The District Attorney’s Office did not have a constitutional duty to disclose the information, the judge said, finding no evidentiary violations.
Rubinson added that “there is no particular formula in vehicular homicide cases. Instead, (such cases) have to be approached on a case-by-case basis.”
The judge explained that his denial of the defense motion “never even reached” the consideration of whether the traffic/accident data, if discussed at the preliminary hearing, would have effected the determination of probable cause.
Bohm — who was 22 at the time of the crash and is now 24 — is charged with four counts each of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in the Oct. 17, 2023, nighttime crash that killed Niamh Rolston, 20; Peyton Stewart, 21; Asha Weir, 21; and Deslyn Williams, 21.
All four women were seniors at Pepperdine’s Seaver College of Liberal Arts and members of the Alpha Phi sorority. They were set to graduate with the university’s class of 2024, and subsequently received their degrees posthumously.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said Bohm swerved onto the north shoulder of westbound PCH and slammed into three vehicles parked alongside on the roadway. Those parked vehicles struck the four Pepperdine students, leaving them dead at the scene, according to the sheriff’s department.
At the preliminary hearing in April 2025, Superior Court Judge Diego Edber found sufficient evidence to allow the case against Bohm to proceed to trial. At the time, Deputy District Attorney Nathan Bartos said that Bohm “lost control of his vehicle” as the women walked along the shoulder area after getting out of a vehicle in the 45 mph zone.
Bohm was initially arrested, then freed from jail and then re-arrested. He has been free on bail that was posted shortly after the case was filed against him eight days after the crash.
The section of PCH where the crash occurred is known as “Dead Man’s Curve” and reportedly has seen the highest number of auto accidents on the overall 21-mile coastal road — with no fatals aside from Bohm’s in the past 10 years, defense attorneys said Monday.
The tragedy prompted several lawsuits, along with numerous calls to remedy the dangers and minimize speeds along that section of PCH. No safeguards were in place for pedestrians at the crash scene, even though the city has known about the dangers for decades, lawyers for the students’ parents said after the crash.
Bohm is due back in a Van Nuys courtroom for a pretrial hearing Sept. 2.