30 Years to Life for Drunk Driver

A repeat drunken driver whose wrong-way freeway rampage led to four deaths was sentenced today to 30 years to life in prison for murder. Daniel E. Murray, 27, of Lancaster sat calmly and remained quiet as the sentence was handed down by Superior Court Judge Katherine Stoltz in Van Nuys.

Murray was found guilty last month of four counts of second-degree murder and driving under the influence. According to prosecutors, Murray had a history of drunken driving and had been drinking heavily Dec. 11, 1986, when he turned his pickup truck around on the Ventura Freeway and drove the wrong way through traffic for several miles before slamming into a car driven by Suzanne Brown. Brown was killed along with her father, Jack Rawles, 67; her son, Jonah, 7, and her older son’s girlfriend, Dia Rounds, 16, all of Ventura. The older son, Jamaal, was aboard a school bus on the way home from a high school basketball game when it passed the wreckage. The teen-ager saw his mother’s car and learned she had been killed.