Driver Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter in Deaths of Woman, Fetus : Traffic fatalities: The defendant, 19, was speeding and high on LSD at the time of the crash in Manhattan Beach.

A 19-year-old woman who drove her speeding car into a Manhattan Beach intersection while high on LSD, killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child, pleaded guilty Monday to vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of drugs.

Heather Tolles, 19, of South Pasadena clutched her attorney’s hand and wept as she entered the guilty pleas in Torrance Superior Court. Tolles spoke briefly in a quavering voice during the hearing and then murmured to her parents, who sat behind her, before she was led away.

Tolles, who originally faced two counts of second-degree murder, has been held in lieu of $200,000 bail since the May 5 accident, which killed Laura Obele, 26, of Manhattan Beach. Obele was due on May 26 to give birth to a boy.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Cain said she accepted the guilty pleas because it would have been difficult to prove that Tolles displayed malice--necessary to win a conviction on a murder charge.

“There was some evidence of the mental state required for murder . . . but probably not enough to prove it to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt,” Cain said.

Cain said she discussed the issue with Mitch Obele, Laura Obele’s husband, who indicated he preferred the stiffer charges. Obele, who has filed a civil lawsuit against Tolles, could not be reached for comment.

Defense attorney Charles English said that “the chances of a second-degree murder conviction were extremely slim. These are appropriate charges.”

While Tolles has said she remembers little about the crash, she is emotionally distraught about what happened, English said. “The hardest thing she’s having to deal with is the fact that she killed people,” he said. “It’s very difficult to face.”

Former teachers described Tolles as a conscientious girl who earned good grades and competed on South Pasadena High School’s swim team. She had attended UC San Diego but dropped out at the end of the 1989 fall quarter.

A fan of the rock group Grateful Dead, Tolles went to the group’s concert at Cal State Dominguez Hills the day of the accident. She and three friends--Deborah Simmons of South Pasadena and two men--drove together, but could not get into the sold-out show, Simmons told police the day after the crash.

After Tolles and Simmons took two pills of LSD each, one of the men drove the group to Manhattan Beach, where they planned to walk until the drug’s effects wore off. But when the men left the car, Tolles got back in, locked the door and sped off through several stop signs, Simmons said.

A few moments before the crash, a police officer spotted Tolles making an unsafe turn and began chasing her.

Simmons said that as the car sped north on Highland Avenue toward Manhattan Beach Boulevard, Tolles began mumbling about voices and then screamed: “This is what was meant to be, yes, yes, yes!”

Tolles broadsided Obele’s car at about 50 miles an hour, crushing it to half its width. Police said there were no skid marks to indicate that Tolles attempted to stop before the crash.

Tolles was not injured in the collision and Simmons was treated for scrapes. Obele was flown by helicopter to county Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where her fetus was pronounced dead after an hour. Obele died 3 1/2 hours later.

Tolles faces a maximum of 11 years and 8 months in state prison when Judge William Hollingsworth sentences her Nov. 1.