By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-12 15:51:43 | Updated at 2025-03-12 20:18:59
4 hours ago
A friend of the three college students killed in a fiery Cybertruck crash agreed to take his drunk, coked-up friends to the Tesla before the fatal ride — then heard their dying screams when it crashed in front of him.
Matthew Riordan gave in after his intoxicated friend Soren Dixon, 19, begged him at a party to take him to his family’s Tesla truck — which Dixon then crashed, killing himself and two others as Riordan drove closely behind him, court documents reviewed by The Daily Mail said.
Dixon “pleaded with me to (drive him to) get the Cybertruck,” he told investigators, according to the docs.
“Soren did not seem drunk at the time, his speech was normal and so was his walking,” Riordan said of the teen driver, who was actually twice the legal limit and had cocaine in his system.
Dixon’s passengers — Jack Nelson, 20, Krysta Tsukahara, 19, who both also died, and Jordan Miller, 20, who was seriously injured but survived — were also found to be drunk and on cocaine, autopsies showed.
Riordan was following the Tesla when Dixon flew off the road while speeding around a sharp bend, striking a tree and a wall and bursting into flames — with their friend hearing screams as he desperately tried to save them.
“I could hear Krysta yelling and the car saying ‘crash detected,’” Riordan told cops, according to the documents obtained by the Mail.
The Cybertruck’s back window had broken and Riordan yelled for his friends to escape that way.
“Krysta tried to come up, sticking her head (out) from the back, I grabbed her arm to try and pull her towards me, but she retreated because of the fire,” he told police.
He tried to open the electric vehicle’s doors but “nothing budged at all.” He tried to bash through the windows with his barehands, but couldn’t break the armored glass.
Desperate, he grabbed a five-foot tree branch and smashed into the passenger side window 10-15 times, which finally shattered, Riordan said.
He was able to pull out Miller, who was barely conscious, before the raging fire made it impossible to save the other friends.
Dixon, Nelson and Tsukahara all died from asphyxia due to smoke inhalation in the car — but burns were also a “significant” factor in their deaths, which were ruled accidental, according to an autopsy report.
Dixon, had a BAC of 0.195% at the time of the crash, according to an investigation by the California Highway Patrol (CHP).
All four involved in the crash also had cocaine in their systems, cops said.
“Officers determined that a combination of driving under the influence of drugs and unsafe speed were the causes” of the crash, CHP said.
The four crash victims were recent graduates of Piedmont High School who were home from their respective colleges for the short Thanksgiving break.
They had all been hanging out with a small group of friends at a house party where Dixon insisted that he go for a drive in the Tesla when the party was over, according to the Daily Mail.
The crash remains under investigation by CHP and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
