Honor Students Killed in Crash Minutes After Taking an Exam

Teachers at Junipero Serra High School expressed shock Friday at the deaths of two honor students who were killed in a car crash minutes after finishing a history mid-term exam at the Gardena school.

The students, both 16-year-old sophomores, died Thursday when their car, traveling up to 80 m.p.h., bounced off a curb and was sheared in half by a light post, police said. Two other students were injured, one critically.

One of the students, Sean Andrews, was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident at Van Ness Avenue and 77th Street, about five miles from the Serra campus, police said. A second victim, DeMar Harper, 16, was taken to Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital, where he died soon after arrival.

Two other 16-year-old Serra students in the car were injured. Michael Foley was in critical but stable condition Saturday at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said. A fourth student, Corey Jones, sustained minor injuries and was treated at Daniel Freeman hospital and released, police said.

Brother Urban Naal, a world history teacher at Serra, said the four sophomores had just finished an hourlong mid-term exam in his class before leaving the campus at 11 a.m.. It was an abbreviated school day and the last day of the mid-term exam period.

“They had just left my class and 15 minutes later they had the accident,” Naal said. “These were neat kids, very good students. These were kids who you knew were going to be future leaders at the school.”

Another Serra teacher, who asked not to be named, said the tragedy was “particularly difficult for our students. Our students are very close. We always say we’re the Serra family. There’s a real closeness here, and the boys are taking this very, very hard.”

A private, all-boys Catholic school run by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Serra has about 350 students.

A memorial Mass will be said at the school Monday, school officials said.

Detective Dennis Burkman, a Los Angeles Police Department traffic investigator, said Andrews was driving the compact car when the accident occurred. No other vehicles appeared to be involved, he said.

Burkman said Corey Jones, one of the surviving students, told investigators that Andrews was trying to keep up with a speeding car in front of them. After the car turned off at an intersection, the students continued north on Van Ness at speeds up to 80 m.p.h. when Andrews lost control of the car, Burkman said.

“The car slammed into a metal light post and it virtually sheared the car in half, just as if you’d cut it in half with a saw,” Burkman said.

School officials said they were notified of the accident soon after it happened by a phone call from another student, and priests from the school were on the scene within minutes.

Naal, who visited the victims’ families Friday with Father Roland Bunda, the campus minister, said funeral arrangements were pending.

“They were all good students, good academically and they didn’t cause any problems,” Naal said. “It’s going to be hard to go back to class on Monday.”