PCH murder case will stand

Judge rejects driver's attempt to avoid trial in crash that killed 4 Pepperdine students.

- BY RICHARD WINTON

IRFAN KHAN Los Angeles Times FAMILY MEMBERS of Fraser Bohm leave a courthouse in Van Nuys after a bail hearing in 2023.

A judge declined to dismiss murder charges Monday against a driver accused of fatally hitting four Pepperdine University sorority sisters crossing Pacific Coast Highway with his car while speeding more than 100 mph two years ago.

Fraser Bohm, 24, is charged with four counts of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence stemming from the Oct. 17, 2023, crash on a stretch of PCH in Malibu known as "Dead Man's Curve," where he plowed into parked cars, killing the women.

He is charged with murder based on the concept of implied malice, suggesting a conscious disregard for human life, after allegedly reaching 104 mph before the crash.

Alan Jackson, Bohm's new high-profile lawyer who garnered headlines as a defense attorney in the high-profile Massachusetts murder trial of Karen Reed - argued that "speed alone isn't implied malice" based on rulings by the California Supreme Court, so the murder charges should be dismissed.