One year after 4 Pepperdine students were killed in high-speed crash, sorority sisters push for change

Pepperdine students continue to grieve their deaths while trying to honor their legacy by fixing the dangerous roadway where they were killed.

Thursday marks one year since four Pepperdine University students were struck and killed in a high-speed crash along Pacific Coast Highway.

 

On Oct. 17, 2023, Niahm Rolston, Peyton Stewert, Asha Weir and Deslyn Williams, were walking in Malibu towards a home on PCH to meet their sorority sisters when a car traveling at a high speed veered onto the shoulder of the road and slammed into three parked cars. Authorities said one of the parked cars hit the women, killing them.

Pepperdine students, including the slain women’s sorority sisters and friends, continue to grieve their deaths while trying to honor their legacy by fixing the dangerous roadway where they were killed.

 

It may have been a year since the deadly crash, but Pepperdine Alpha Phi sisters are still honoring the lasting impacts the four students left behind while struggling to cope with pain and grief.

 

“I’ll never understand this,” said Hannah Allen, the best friend of Deslyn Williams, “I don’t know how I got through this year. My junior year was a complete blur just because of losing them.”

 

Allen recalled every day she spent with Deslyn, sitting on Allen’s porch planning their years ahead — together.

 

“We would just talk about our future all the time,” said Allen. “She was going to plan my wedding and be a bridesmaid. We had our whole future planned for our families that don’t even exist yet.”

 

Georgia Puckett, Vice President of New Member Education and Membership Experience for Alpha Phi and a good friend of the late students, said she’s tried to live more like her sisters did.

 

“They were able to teach me to be authentically myself and not apologize for that,” Puckett said. “That is something I continue to try to live with every single day — living how they lived their lives because they were my inspiration. They were quite literally my best role models.”

 

Puckett now wears a pair of emerald earrings that remind her of her friend, Asha Weir.