State Settles With Families of Women Killed in Crash

Just 3 days before trial, the state of California settled Friday with the families of three young women killed in 1984 by a drunk driver on Pacific Coast Highway.

In a lawsuit, the families had charged that the state Department of Transportation had failed to make safe a stretch of the highway in Seal Beach where the accident occurred. The families claimed that lighting was inadequate and that despite the presence of a “dangerous curve,” there was no center divider.

A lawyer said the deal called for “substantial” payments to survivors, but he declined to specify how much.

1984 Accident

The suit stemmed from an accident on Sept. 10, 1984, in which three young women from Mission Viejo died when their sports car was hit head-on by a car driven by Kym Murphy, then 25, of Oxnard. Murphy was convicted of manslaughter in a related criminal case and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Murphy, who later testified in court that she had used alcohol and cocaine before driving, failed to negotiate a curve, crossed the center lines and collided with the car.

The suit was filed in May, 1985, by the families of the young women--Deborah Lee Slemmons, 20; Dawn Joy Utterback, 18, and Diane Mae Druckrey, 21. They were close friends and graduates of Capistrano Valley High School in Mission Viejo.

The families had each sought about $1 million in the suit, said Gordon Phillips, the attorney who represented the Druckrey and Slemmons families. Under the settlement, the terms and the amount are secret, Phillips said.

“My clients feel vindicated,” he said. “The state admitted that they were responsible.”

‘Agreeable to Both Sides’

Larry Danielson, an attorney for the Department of Transportation, said the “terms were agreeable to both sides.”

The mother of one of the victims said that although the case was handled fairly by the courts and the state, the memory of her daughter’s death “will probably be with me until my grave.”

“I don’t think I would be satisfied with any results,” said Diana Utterback, whose daughter Dawn was killed.

“I don’t think you can put a price on a child.”

Phillips said Seal Beach residents had been asking Caltrans to erect a center divider for several years before the accident. Several months after the crash, Caltrans workers installed a concrete highway divider on the stretch of highway.

Murphy was convicted in April, 1985, on three counts of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison. She fled before she began serving her term and eluded authorities for more than 2 years before being captured Jan. 6.