Fraser Bohm must face murder counts at trial after court denies second attempt to dismiss murder charges.
The judge has ruled in the Fraser Bohm trial after the defense requested that the four murder charges that their client is facing be dropped. Defense lawyer Alan Jackson argued that Bohm should only be charged with gross vehicular manslaughter in the crash that killed four Pepperdine students, Asha Weir, 21, Deslyn Williams, 21, Niamh Rolston, 20, and Peyton Stewart, 21, on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
Bohm was speeding over 100 miles per hour on the highway in 2023 when he lost control of his vehicle and smashed into cars that were parked on the side of the road, which then hit and killed the four female seniors.
The young women were attending Pepperdine’s Seaver College of Liberal Arts and were members of the same sorority, Alpha Phi. They were awarded their degrees posthumously after the crash on October 17, 2023.
The area where the crash took place is known as “Dead Man’s Curve.”
This was celebrity defense lawyer Jackson’s second attempt to get the murder charges thrown out after the first motion to dismiss in October 2025 was also denied by a judge. Bohm hired Alan Jackson in August 2025 and pleaded not guilty.
Jackson argued that the circumstances of the crash did not meet the standard of murder charges, but prosecutor Nathan Bartos said, “Speed alone is not what the people are arguing. It wasn’t what we argued at the preliminary hearing. We presented witnesses who described the dangerous driving, not just speeding,” as quoted by ABC 7 Eyewitness News.
In addition to the four murder charges, Bohm is also facing four counts of gross vehicular manslaughter. The 24-year-old has been free on his own recognisance after being bailed out shortly after the crash. Bohm was ordered to stand trial in May 2025, and the trial is now scheduled to begin on September 8.
