Huntington Beach man arrested on suspicion of murder while still in hospital recovering from September crash

A Huntington Beach man was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder for the Sept. 11 death of a 22-year-old woman who had been riding on his motorcycle during a collision on Pacific Coast Highway allegedly caused by his reckless driving.

John Marshall Murray III, 22, is in the custody of the Huntington Beach Police while recovering in an area hospital for significant injuries sustained during the crash, H.B. spokeswoman Jennifer Carey confirmed Thursday.

Conscious and able to speak with police, Murray is expected to be arraigned on Friday, at which point his bail could be set as high as $1 million, Carey said.

The arrest follows a months-long investigation into the death of Meghan Elizabeth Wautlet, 22, of Huntington Beach, a passenger on the back of Murray’s motorcycle at the time of the incident.

The collision occurred at 8:17 p.m. on Pacific Coast Highway south of Warner Avenue. Murray’s 2019 Harley Davidson was traveling southbound “at a high rate of speed,” when it collided with a Mazda CX-5 making a legal U-turn from the northbound side of PCH, City News Service reported.

The driver of the Mazda, a 41-year-old woman from Beaumont, remained at the scene of the collision and cooperated with authorities. Murray was discovered in the roadway with significant injuries and transported to a nearby hospital, while Wautlet was pronounced dead at the scene.

Members of Huntington Beach Police Department’s Major Accident Investigations Team determined while neither drugs nor alcohol seemed to have played a role in the crash, Murray had been speeding and performing “dangerous stunts which contributed to the cause of the collision,” according to the release.

Carey said Thursday the arrest on suspicion of murder stemmed from numerous previous citations, arrests and collisions for which Murray had been at fault since he got his motorcycle in January 2021.

In the seven months prior to the collision, he was cited or arrested five times for traffic-related charges, including speeding and reckless driving, and had been involved in at least three separate at-fault collisions during which he was unsafely operating his motorcycle, according to Thursday’s release.

One collision occurred in Los Angeles County, while another took place in Ventura County, Carey confirmed.

“The number of incidents is troubling and shows there is preexisting behavior that could have been prevented prior to the [collision],” she added. “This is a significant event, and based on the history of this suspect, we felt an arrest for murder was warranted.”

Anyone who may have witnessed the Sept. 11 collision, or who may have additional information, is encouraged to contact HBPD traffic investigator Vishal Rattanchandani at (714) 536-5231 or email vrattanchandani@hbpd.org.

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