‘That’s My Mom’s Car!’ : Boy on Team Bus Notices Crash; Family Wiped Out

The bus carrying the Buena High School basketball team home from a Thursday night game was caught in a slowdown on the Ventura Freeway in Agoura, where an accident had snarled traffic.

As the bus passed the crash scene near Liberty Canyon, where a head-on collision had made the car hardly recognizable, one of the players, Jamaal Brown, spotted the vanity license plate--TEACH U--of his mother, a special education teacher at Ventura High School.

“Stop the bus! Stop the bus! That’s my mom’s car!” Brown shouted, according to Buena High basketball coach Glen Hannah.

Brown, 17, ran to the wreckage but was restrained by officers. His mother, brother, grandfather and girlfriend were fatally injured in the collision with what officers said was a wrong-way driver. They had been heading home after watching Brown play in a basketball game in Beverly Hills.

Suzanne Brown, 37, of Ventura; her father, Jack Rawls, 69, and Dia Rae Rounds, 16, Brown’s girlfriend, were dead at the scene. Seven-year-old Jonah Brown died a short time later at Westlake Community Hospital.

The California Highway Patrol said it will seek murder charges against Daniel E. Murray, 25, of Lancaster, who was driving a pickup truck that slammed head-on into the Brown car.

Murray was treated for minor injuries at the hospital. He is being held without bail at County Jail pending arraignment in Los Angeles Municipal Court next week, CHP Officer Kenn Rosenberg said.

Murray “exhibited symptoms of intoxication” at the accident scene, Rosenberg said.

Brown plays reserve point guard for the Buena High team and is “probably the most popular kid on campus,” said Joe Vaughan, school athletic director.

At Ventura High, where the mother taught, “the trauma was complete,” Principal Bob Cousar said.

“Shock, frustration, anger. You name the emotion of trying to deal with something like this and it was here. It has crossed the entire community,” he said.

The accident occurred as Murray was driving east in the westbound freeway lanes, Rosenberg said. He sideswiped one car and hit the concrete divider, he said. The truck bounced off the divider and then smashed into Suzanne Brown’s 1986 Honda Accord shortly after 10 p.m., he said.

Murder Charges Expected

Murray originally was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, but Rosenberg said murder charges are expected to be filed by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

“The evidence would appear to indicate second-degree murder,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert McIntosh said.

Two people besides Murray were treated for minor injuries at Westlake Community Hospital, Rosenberg said.

Murray, an equipment operator at Northrop Corp.’s Aircraft Division plant at Hawthorne, told police he “doesn’t know how he got on the 101 (Ventura Freeway),” Rosenberg said. “All he knows is he left work, and he was driving home to Lancaster.”

Preliminary investigation indicated that Murray may have been driving the wrong way on the freeway for seven miles or more, McIntosh said.

Basketball coach Hannah said Jamaal Brown spent Thursday night at a teammate’s home with the coach and eight fellow players. He had no other siblings besides Jonah. The youth’s father, Bubba Brown, lives in Seattle. His grandmother lives in Ventura.