Three years after a speeding driver killed Bridget Thompson's four best friends in Southern California, her simplest memories of them have become the most vivid.
There was Peyton Stewart, who was so caring that Thompson affectionately called her Mom. There was Asha Weir, who once bought Thompson a bouquet of sunflowers simply because she knew they were Thompson's favorite.
Deslyn Williams had so much confidence and strength, that when Thompson struggled to find her own, she could always count on Williams to give her a boost. And then there was Niamh Rolston. When Thompson sometimes fell asleep before she meant to, Rolston would take off Thompson's glasses and turn out her light.
They weren't just sorority sisters. They were family.
Their world came
crashing down on Oct. 17, 2023, when a young man speeding up to 104 mph in his BMW along Malibu's Pacific Coast Highway lost control and hit some parked cars, which careened into Stewart, Weir, Williams, and Rolston, killing all four of the Pepperdine University students in an instant. Thompson, who was supposed to be with her fellow Alpha Phi sorority sisters that night as they headed to a Greek life mixer, hasn't been the same since.
"It's left me really broken," Thompson told USA TODAY. "They were my everything at the time. They were the people I spent every hour and second with, the people I said 'Goodnight' and 'Good morning' to. ... I lost my whole world in that moment."
Fraser Bohm, the then-22-year-old man who was driving the BMW that night, is set to go on trial on Dec. 1 on second-degree murder and vehicular manslaughter charges in the case. Bohm has pleaded not guilty and his attorneys are arguing that he was fleeing from a road-rage driver at the time. He faces anywhere from two years to life in prison if he's convicted.
The trial is being closely watched for its implications for other fatal high-speed crashes that don't involve drugs or alcohol. Many of Stewart's, Rolston's, Williams' and Weir's family members are expected to attend.
As Bohm's trial nears, Thompson has been reliving the memories from that night and the terrible weeks that followed. She's also fighting to spread awareness about the dangers of speeding and to make sure that amid the anticipated media circus around the trial, the world remembers just how much was lost.
Who was Peyton Stewart?
Peyton Stewart was a 21-year-old international business major who grew up with her sister in Westwood, New Jersey, studied abroad in London and interned at TikTok.
Thompson met Stewart in 2021, when they were among the few students who signed a COVID-19 exemption so they could live on campus, though all classes were on Zoom. It was in one of those online classes that the young women began messaging each other and decided to meet in person, opting for Chick-fil-A and cupcakes during their first hangout.
"From that moment on, we became inseparable," Thompson said. "I don't have a sister and she was that to me . . . She would definitely have been my maid of honor."
She described Stewart as selfless, ambitious, wise beyond her years and maternal.
"We all called her Mom, actually. That’s just who she was to her core," Thompson said. "If any of us were sick, she'd run to the store for medicine. Or if we were having a bad day, she'd go and get our favorite food."
Thompson said that Stewart was driven but not competitive and that she always pushed those around her to strive for more.
"I don't think I would be where I am today with my career without her support and everything she taught me and the values she instilled in me," said Thompson, who works as a recruiter for fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands.
Stewart's father, Barry Stewart, told KABC-TV in 2023 that his daughter's dream was to go to Pepperdine University and was thankful for the strong community she found there.
"I look back and say she had a happy, although far too short, life," he said. "She accomplished a fair amount in that short life."
Who was Deslyn Williams?
Deslyn Williams was a 21-year-old pre-med biology major who grew up in Atlanta and dreamed of becoming a veterinarian.
Thompson said that Williams struck up their friendship after they during an English class on Zoom. "She said, 'Hi, let's be friends.'"
Because Thompson was in California and Williams was in Georgia, they first chatted over Facetime. "And we would Facetime literally every day."
She remembered Williams as "the type of person who walked in the room and immediately lit it up."
"She had a confidence about her that made everybody in complete awe," Thompson said. "She was the type of person who would just hype everyone up."
Whenever Thompson was feeling down about herself, she said Williams was there to save the day.
"She was very quick to remind you who were and that you deserve all the good things," Thompson said. "She was your confidence when you didn’t have any."
The year of the crash, Thompson shared an apartment with Stewart, Rolston and Weir. On the morning of the crash, she remembers how the four of them were in the living room, giggling as they speculated about who Williams would one day marry.
"We were trying to decide what he would be like and look like," she said. "Our futures were always a top of conversation."
Williams' father, Desmond Williams, spoke of his daughter at a Pepperdine memorial service the weekend after the crash, according to the Pepperdine Graphic, the university newspaper that has closely covered the tragedy and subsequent court case.
“She’s very loving and caring and fiercely, fiercely loyal to her family and friends,” Desmond Williams said at the memorial. “If you want to pick a fight, you can do anything to her, and she will forgive you, but if you do something to family and friends, you’re in trouble.”
Who was Niamh Rolston?
Niamh Rolston, whose Irish first name is pronounced like "Neeve," was a 20-year-old business administration major who grew up with her brother in Los Angeles, was a varsity cheerleader and pole vaulter in high school, and always talked about how much she wanted to have children one day.
"When she looked into her future, she just really really wanted to be a mom and have a family," Thompson said. "That was her main dream over anything career-related."
Thompson and Rolston shared a dorm room in sophomore year and then again in senior year when they shared an apartment with Stewart and Williams.
"Niamh was a ball of sunshine," Thompson said. "She didn't have a mean bone in her body and she was such a great shoulder to cry on. You never felt judged when talking to Niamh."
She said that Rolston always knew just what to say to make someone feel better and did lots of little things that showed how much she cared.
"If I would go to bed with my light on and glasses on, she would take my glasses off and turn out the light," she recalled.
Rolston's father, David Rolston, said at the Pepperdine memorial service that his daughter was filled with "fearless love," reported the Pepperdine Graphic.
“She was quick to offer her friendship and embrace new people, and she was never shy about telling her family and friends how much she loved them,” David Rolston said.
He said that he and his wife Tracy saw their daughter "in a way that she did not see herself with her big eyes and ... her youth and her beauty."
He added: "She seemed to have been blessed with everything that was the best part of each of us."
Who was Asha Weir?
Asha Weir was a 21-year-old English and rhetoric major who loved writing poetry and dreamed of being a writer for a living. She was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up with her two brothers in Skippack, Pennsylvania.
Thompson described Weir as a gentle soul who "always came at everything with so much wisdom."
"She was the person you'd go to for advice," Thompson said. " She calmed all my anxiety."
She recalled a particularly sweet moment she shared with Weir a week before the crash.
"I was having a bad day and she came home … she had gone to the farmers market or something and saw sunflowers," Thompson said. "I loved sunflowers and she came home with these beautiful sunflowers. She said that she thought I'd like them and wanted to get them for me."
Weir's mother, Vinita Weir, said Asha was brave, wise and determined in the face of challenges, according to the Pepperdine Graphic.
“She was wise beyond her years, and she would frequently joke that she was a real mom,” Vinita Weir said.
She said that her daughter's name means "hope."
“She brought that to so many of us,” she said, the Graphic reported. “She loved like there was no tomorrow − all in, 100%, always.”
Her mother and others raised more than $17,000 to create a permanent memorial for Asha Weir and her friends at a favorite spot on the coast called Point Dume, a place that was the subject of one of Weir's poems, according to a GoFundMe page.
"Close your eyes, slow your heart, and breath. You are here, you are okay," reads the poem. "Allow your mind to rest, awhile. Relax and be free."
Deaths of sorority sister devastated university
The crash that killed Stewart, Williams, Rolston and Weir not only devastated those who loved them most, it left a deep scar on the close-knit community at Pepperdine, a Christian school with about 9,000 students whose picturesque campus overlooks the Pacific Ocean.
Tim Spivey, Pepperdine’s vice president for spiritual life, told USA TODAY that he'll never forget getting the call about the crash at 5 a.m. the morning after it happened. Two of his own daughters, 18 and 20 at the time, also were Pepperdine students, so the news hit even closer to home.
Spivey held an emotional service later that night in honor of the students killed. He also organized a prayer service the next day and their memorial service that weekend.
"There was a very dark cloud over the campus the rest of that year and beyond," Spivey said. "I already can feel it coming. Every time on Oct. 17 I know when it happened. I don’t have to look it up, it'll be in my memory forever. It's marked there, those girls are marked there."
One story about the students that emerged in the wake of their death sums up the kind of young women they were, he said.
After the prayer service the day after the crash, he said a stocker at the Whole Foods in Malibu near campus approached him in tears, "telling me how wonderful those girls were."
"She said, 'Not everyone who comes to the store is nice to me. They were always nice to me,'" he recalled. "This is Malibu, home of the rich and famous, and over in the corner is this diminutive Hispanic woman with broken English and those four girls were kind enough to her that she took a day off work to try to get to the prayer service . . . That's a stunning tribute. It's a goodness legacy."
Fighting back tears, he added: "They've been a galvanizing memory on our campus ever since and probably will be forever.
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers the death penalty, cold case investigations, breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 4 sorority sisters killed in high-speed crash left 'legacy of goodness'
