Detectives May Need To Close PCH To Complete Death Probe
Written by 991KBU on August 6, 2018
A van … full of empty alcohol bottles. … driven by a Malibu man who was living in it … at an estimated 100 miles an hour on PCH.
Last Friday … at 12:09.
Kids at the Malibu Makos surf camp were eating lunch …. they heard a vehicle go through the orange paddles ….. brrrrrrp… 17 of them.
Many … looked up to see the grinding head on crash.
Broken alcohol bottles scattered on the highway.
The aftermath … a woodworker from La Habra … dead.
Thousands of Malibu residents cut off … the coastal artery blocked for almost six hours.
Also dead .. the 48-year-old man at the wheel of the the van …
Witnesses say he was barely able to walk … minutes before the crash.
The bloodshed was a few minutes after noon … on P C H at the Trancas Creek bridge … in western Malibu.
Witnesses say the van was rocketing west on P C H … and went onto the wrong side of the highway near Guernsey to get around traffic.
One witness said it was intentional … the driver was trying to go around traffic that was going only 55.
At the end of the orange paddles … the driver apparently swerved to avoid oncoming traffic.
But the concrete curb launched the van into the air.
It smashed head-on into a pickup truck … heading east … driven by a carpenter named Rick Artes … age 60 … of La Habra.
Mister Artes was was killed on impact.
His passenger was severely injured.
The driver of the van .. also killed on impact.
He was identified as 48-year-old Mike Hollinrake … homeless.
But Mike Hollinrake was very familiar to the surfers down at Westward Beach.
He was a Malibu native … long estranged from his parents … who at one time had a court order against him.
He lived in his van … usually parked on Westward Beach.
But sometimes he plugged into electricity at a home in western Malibu.
His friends said he drank a lot … and took pain medicine for injured legs.
Sheriff’s deputies were familiar with him.
The road was closed for almost six hours.
The crash reconstruction team suspended their work … in the interests of reopening the highway.
Sometime later this week … they’ll return with laser measuring devices… to finish their investigation.
That will require brief closures of P C H at Trancas Creek.
Te coroner is conducting tests on Hollinrake’s remains … for drugs and alcohol.
This is at least the third traffic fatality in recent years involving people livign along Zuma beach.
Two other homeless people were killed crossing P C H near the liquor store at Busch Drive … late at night.
