A 16-year-old girl who was involved in a car crash that killed four other teenagers in April was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, the Marin County District Attorney’s Office confirmed to ABC News.
The teen driver was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, along with two infractions — driving at an unsafe speed and violation of the provisional licensing program, prosecutors confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.
“This is an unimaginable tragedy for all those involved,” the teen’s attorney, Charles Dresow, told ABC News on Thursday.
On April 18 at approximately 7:25 p.m., the teen suspect was allegedly driving between 60-65 mph in a 40 mph zone, made an “unsafe turning movement” and drove the car off the road and into a large Redwood tree, according to a report from the California Highway Patrol that was obtained by ABC’s San Francisco station KGO and has not been publicly released.
Once the car hit the tree, the force of impact caused the rear of the vehicle to “lift off the ground and the vehicle’s roof impacted the tree,” according to the CHP report. Following the crash, the car “came to a rest on its wheels against the Redwood tree” and caught fire, the report said.
Due to the force of the crash, the driver and one passenger were seriously injured, and the four other passengers sustained fatal injuries, the report said.
The report revealed the teens had all met in Downtown Fairfax, California, and were on their way to one of the passengers’ homes for a sleepover when the crash occurred.
The cause of the crash was determined to be the speed the car was traveling, the “unsafe turning movement,” and the driver’s limited time with her license — with officials saying she “likely lacked the experience to safely handle these road conditions at a high speed,” the report said.
There was no evidence of the driver being under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crash, the report said.
Due to the “extensive thermal damage sustained to the interior of the vehicle, it was indeterminate if other airbags had been deployed,” but highway patrol said there were no “pre-collision conditions found that would have caused or contributed to the collision.”
The teen’s next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 3 at 1:30 p.m. local time, Dresow told ABC News.
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