{"id":45562,"date":"2025-11-20T01:56:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45562\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T01:56:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:56:17","slug":"driver-hit-106-mph-seconds-before-fatal-manhattan-beach-crash-investigator-testifies-daily-breeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45562\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver hit 106 mph seconds before fatal Manhattan Beach crash, investigator testifies \u2013 Daily Breeze"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 33-year-old man drove in excess of 100 miles per hour on Sepulveda Boulevard while singing along to loud music to impress a date when he crashed into another car making a left turn, killing one of the three occupants inside<\/a>, then ran away, according to testimony and arguments from a preliminary hearing earlier this month.<\/p>\n

A Torrance Superior Court judge on Nov. 4 ordered Kameron Lee Peterson to stand trial on counts of second-degree murder, hit-and-run driving causing death or serious injury and reckless driving with injuries, Deputy District Attorney Geoff Lewin said.<\/p>\n

A transcript of the preliminary hearing was provided to the Southern California News Group.<\/p>\n

A motion by Peterson\u2019s attorney, Robert Ernenwein, to dismiss the murder charge was denied by Judge Thomas R. Sokolov.<\/p>\n

The crash occurred about 11:25 p.m. on Jan. 7. Peterson was allegedly speeding southbound on Sepulveda<\/a> when the victims\u2019 car made a left turn from northbound Sepulveda toward a Taco Bell parking lot in front of his car, according to testimony from the preliminary hearing.<\/p>\n

Officer Nolan Beranek of the Manhattan Beach Police Department, who investigated the collision, testified that the data from Peterson\u2019s Mercedes Benz sedan showed that in the five seconds leading up to the crash in the 300 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard, he was traveling as fast as 106 mph.<\/p>\n

Peterson\u2019s car was traveling at 83 mph at the time of the crash. A passenger in the back seat of the victims\u2019 car, 18-year-old Ford Savela, died at a hospital and a front seat passenger also was hospitalized. The driver of the car, a Subaru, escaped with minor injuries.<\/p>\n

Monique Martinez, who was on a date with Peterson and was a passenger in his car during the crash, testified during the hearing that Peterson picked her up in Compton and they went to Baja Sharkeez in Manhattan Beach, where they each had two margaritas and a shot of tequila. She said they then ran back to his car because it was windy and they planned to go to a hookah lounge.<\/p>\n

After leaving Baja Sharkeez, Peterson began to increase his speed, Martinez said. At one point on Sepulveda Boulevard, she said \u201cSlow down,\u201d but she wasn\u2019t sure if he heard her because of the loud music.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat? You don\u2019t trust me?\u201d Martinez recalled his response.<\/p>\n

She said Peterson kept switching from looking at the road to looking at her.<\/p>\n

Martinez noticed headlights on the victims\u2019 car before the crash, but didn\u2019t say anything because she thought Peterson saw the lights too, she testified. After impact, she said she came to and felt pain in her chest and stomach. Peterson pulled her out of the car and said they needed to go, she testified, but she stayed nearby while he ran off.<\/p>\n

A witness who was walking on Sepulveda Boulevard testified that he heard the impact, saw the victim\u2019s car \u201cvertical\u201d in the air before it landed partially in the street and on the sidewalk near the Taco Bell restaurant. The other car came to rest near a construction site and the witness eventually saw two people outside of the car and one of them, a taller figure, eventually running southbound toward Second Street.<\/p>\n

Martinez said she spoke with an officer at the scene before she was taken to a hospital. At the hospital, she allegedly received a call from Peterson telling her not to say anything.<\/p>\n

Peterson also allegedly tried to get a ride through Uber after the crash, with the pickup location at Second Street and Meadows Avenue, but the driver who responded to the order for \u201cKameron\u201d told police at the site that no one was there when he arrived.<\/p>\n

Peterson turned himself in at the Manhattan Beach Police Department about 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 9.<\/p>\n

Beranek, the officer, testified that there was a \u201cNo Left Turn\u201d sign posted where the Subaru was attempting to turn into the parking lot, but said that Peterson\u2019s alleged speed was the main contributing factor in the crash.<\/p>\n

Martinez testified that Peterson\u2019s driving seemed normal on the way to Baja Sharkeez after he picked her up in Compton. She did not know why he started allegedly speeding after they left the bar.<\/p>\n

Ford Savela was a senior at Mira Costa High School at the time of the crash, according to a GoFundMe<\/a> page set up to raise funds for a scholarship in his name. He was described as a \u201ckind, compassionate, intelligent, and loving person\u201d who \u201calways had a smile on his face and a knack for making people laugh with his silly and joyful ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two other occupants in the victims\u2019 car told officers that they had gone to 24-Hour Fitness in Torrance and planned to stop at Taco Bell for a Baja Blast drink before heading home, Beranek testified.<\/p>\n

Ernenwein argued for the dismissal of the murder count, or that it be lowered to vehicular manslaughter, because the driver of the victims\u2019 vehicle had disobeyed the \u201cNo Left Turn\u201d sign, which Beranek said was a contributing factor to the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat driver was coming down at a very high rate of speed, but we have the decedent\u2019s vehicle that actually turned in front of him unlawfully,\u201d Ernenwein said.<\/p>\n

But Lewin argued under the implied malice theory that Peterson knew his actions could be dangerous to human life and yet he did them anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe drove in a lawful manner on the way (to Baja Sharkeez),\u201d Lewin said. \u201cOn the way back his driving completely changed. He knows how to drive safely. He knows how to drive unsafely. He\u2019s trying to impress the girl who tells him while sitting in the car \u2018slow down\u2019 and puts her seatbelt on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sokolov acknowledged the illegal left turn, but said Peterson\u2019s speed was the controlling factor in the crash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 33-year-old man drove in excess of 100 miles per hour on Sepulveda Boulevard while singing along to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[303,266,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-45562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}