Wrong-Way Driver’s Actions Before Crash Recounted

An accused drunk driver charged with four counts of second-degree murder in a wrong-way freeway collision was alert enough to order a hamburger and french fries and to argue over the price about 30 minutes before the crash, a witness testified Tuesday.

Another witness in Van Nuys Municipal Court said that the driver, Daniel E. Murray, 25, of Lancaster, appeared to wait until there was a break in traffic before making a U-turn on the Ventura Freeway in Agoura shortly before the Dec. 11 collision.

‘Conscious Disregard for Life’

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert H. McIntosh said he introduced the evidence in Murray’s preliminary hearing in an effort to show that the defendant “acted with conscious disregard for human life. That he was aware of the danger he posed to others.”

Such a finding is needed in order to prove murder in an alcohol-related death, he said. The usual charge in such cases is vehicular manslaughter.

Murray’s attorney, Charles R. English, has declined to say what the defense will be. But attorneys in similar cases routinely argue that a defendant’s judgment was obscured by alcohol.

California Highway Patrol officers said that Murray’s blood-alcohol reading, taken an hour after the 10:10 p.m. crash, was .19%, nearly twice the .10% level at which a person is presumed to be intoxicated.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Robert H. Wallerstein must decide what charges, if any, Murray will face in Superior Court.

The victims were the mother, brother, grandfather and girlfriend of Jamaal Brown, a 17-year-old basketball player at Buena High School in Ventura. Riding home in a team bus after a game in Beverly Hills that his family had attended, Brown came upon the scene shortly after the crash.

Marco Aguilar of Van Nuys, a clerk at the Burger King on Van Nuys Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, testified that after Murray ordered food, “He told me very strongly that he didn’t like the price.”

The store manager eventually pacified Murray and Murray left with the food, Aguilar said.

A cash register receipt that police said was inside Murray’s 1968 Ford pick-up truck indicated that the transaction occurred at 9:42 p.m.

Truck Seen Weaving Across Lanes

Several witnesses testified that, before the crash, they saw Murray’s truck westbound on the freeway, repeatedly weaving from the center median across four lanes of traffic to the shoulder and back again.

The erratic driving began just west of Woodland Hills and continued to Kanan Road in Agoura Hills, a distance of about five miles, witnesses said.

At Kanan Road, Murray’s truck appeared to wait along the outside shoulder for a break in traffic, said Patrick C. Northam of Valencia, then abruptly made a U-turn in front of three or four cars.

The truck then sped east on the center divider of the westbound lanes, narrowly missing several vehicles, witnesses said.

Near the Liberty Canyon exit, Murray’s truck crashed head-on into a 1986 Honda Accord carrying the four victims, police said.

McIntosh said that when the hearing resumes Wednesday, he will seek to buttress the case for second-degree murder by placing in evidence Murray’s driving record.

Police have said that Murray has two misdemeanor convictions for alcohol-related offenses, one in 1980 for driving under the influence and another in 1983 for reckless driving.

There was no testimony Tuesday about where or when Murray had been drinking the night of the crash.

Murray, formerly an equipment operator at Northrop Corp.’s Aircraft Division plant in Hawthorne, is being held without bail in County Jail.