By Jessica Bennett | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 25, 2009
From the magazine issue dated May 4, 2009
At the accident site, a crane was lifting the remains of a car so crumpled it was hard to tell what it had been. But Christos recognized a hubcap, barely attached, and collapsed onto the pavement. Later, two coroners told the family Nikki had been driving at close to 100mph when she clipped another vehicle, tumbled over the median and smashed into the concrete tollbooth. An autopsy would later reveal that she still had cocaine in her system.
Two weeks later, Lesli's brother, Geoff, got a call from a neighbor. "Have you seen the photos?" he asked. Apparently, photos of the crash scene were circulating around town, via e-mail. Soon they showed up on Web sites, many of them dedicated to hard-core pornography and death. A fake MySpace page was set up in Nikki's name, where she was identified as a "stupid bitch." "That spoiled rich girl deserved it," one commenter wrote. "What a waste of a Porsche," announced another.
The family filed a formal complaint about the photos' release, and three months later, they received a letter of apology from the California Highway Patrol. An investigation had revealed that the images, taken as a routine part of a fatal accident response, had been leaked by two CHP dispatchers: Thomas O'Donnell, 39, and Aaron Reich, 30. O'Donnell, a 19-year CHP veteran, had been suspended for 25 days without pay. Reich quit soon after—for unrelated reasons, says his lawyer. Both men declined requests for comment, but Jon Schlueter, Reich's attorney, says his client sent the images to relatives and friends to warn them of the dangers of the road. "It was a cautionary tale," Schlueter says. "Any young person that sees these photos and is goaded into driving more cautiously or less recklessly—that's a public service."
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