Teen dies, 4 others hurt in PCH crash

Students at Newbury Park High School had been preparing to stage a dramatic mock car crash as a cautionary tale about the hazards of drinking and driving as prom and graduation season approaches.

Then real life intervened.

Late Tuesday, a popular 17-year-old football player was killed and three classmates were seriously injured in a car crash on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu after a night of partying that authorities said involved alcohol. A fourth passenger suffered minor injuries.

Cody James Murphy, a junior who was a running back on the varsity football team, had been drinking and was driving the car that rolled over and crashed, authorities said.

On Wednesday, word about the accident spread fast at the Ventura County campus.

"You can just see people in groups crying and in hysterics," said junior Brenna Fitzpatrick, 16. "The biggest football player at our school was in tears."

Survivors told investigators that they had been drinking during a night of partying in Los Angeles. Investigators found a large, empty bottle of Jagermeister and, on the floor of the car, a glass pipe and a pill bottle containing medical marijuana.

Tests to determine whether Murphy was legally intoxicated are pending. Investigators said the teens apparently were not wearing seat belts in the 10 p.m. crash.

For Newbury Park High Principal Athol Wong, the pall on the campus where all five students attended had a sad irony.

The school had planned its mock car crash as part of a program called "Every 15 Minutes," Wong said.

One of the student actors scheduled to take part in the two-day event was among those critically injured in the single-car crash, Wong said.

On Wednesday, friends of a 17-year-old girl, the only senior in the group, said she was fighting for her life at UCLA Medical Center.

"It's just tragic," Wong said. "It's a program that stages exactly what happened."

Wong said the school would be canceling the demonstration this year. But she and other educators, along with law enforcement officials, say this week's tragedy underscores a message they have for years been trying to pound into high school students' heads.

Mario Contini, superintendent of the Conejo Valley Unified School District, said the message is simple: Don't drink and drive.

"The sad part is that this is the end of one boy's life and a huge interruption in the lives of so many wonderful kids," he said. "And it is so unnecessary."