‘Ghost Tires’ to Mark Malibu Location Where 4 Pepperdine Students Killed

(Clockwise from top L) Niamh Rolston, 20, Peyton Stewart, 21, Deslyn Williams, 21, and Asha Weir, 21, all seniors at Pepperdine’s Seaver College of Liberal Arts, were killed while standing or walking in the 21600 block of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Calif., on Oct. 18, 2023. Courtesy of Pepperdine University

MALIBU, Calif.—One month after four Pepperdine University students were killed when a car crashed into a series of parked vehicles on Pacific Coast Highway (PCH), members of the traffic safety group Streets Are For Everyone will place four “Ghost Tires” in Malibu on Nov. 14 in memory of the victims.

Family members of the victims and others will also call for Caltrans to take immediate action to slow down traffic on the dangerous stretch of PCH, which has seen a high number of fatal accidents over the years.

Niamh Rolston, Peyton Stewart, Asha Weir, and Deslyn Williams, all in their 20s and seniors at Pepperdine’s Seaver College of Liberal Arts, were killed Oct. 17 while standing or walking in the 21600 block of PCH around 8:30 p.m.

According to the traffic safety group, the four had just parked and were walking to a mixer at a home along the stretch of PCH known as “Dead Man’s Curve.”

The memorial was inspired by the Ghost Bike project, in which roadside memorials are placed where a cyclist has been killed or severely injured by the driver of a motor vehicle. That project began in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2002. Ghost Tires are white-painted tires installed on the side of a road with the name and date of the person killed by a speeding driver.

The memorial will be placed at 23661 PCH at 5 p.m., followed by remarks from family members of the victims, local officials, and safety advocates.

Malibu will also host a public meeting of the PCH Task Force at 10 a.m. Nov. 14, with elected and transportation officials discussing ways to address dangerous conditions on PCH. The meeting is at Malibu City Hall, and will also be streamed here.

The driver in the crash that claimed the lives of the Pepperdine students, 22-year-old Fraser Bohm of Malibu, was arrested on suspicion of murder and other accounts and is out on bail.

Mr. Bohm was driving a dark-colored, four-door sedan westbound on PCH, apparently at high speed, when he swerved onto the north shoulder of the road and slammed into three parked vehicles, heavily damaging all of them and leaving one on its side, authorities said.

“Subsequently, those vehicles hit four female adults standing on the side of the roadway near the parked vehicles,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Capt. Jennifer Seetoo said. “The four females were pronounced dead at the scene.”

Mr. Bohm suffered minor scratches and bruises.