Crash victim may have been driver
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
Honolulu police continue to investigate a one-vehicle crash that killed a former Roosevelt High School basketball star Sunday morning, but police are now looking into the possibility that the 21-year-old victim may have been the driver of the pickup truck.
The city medical examiner identified the victim as Alexis Tatiana Beasley, who died of head injuries after she was thrown from a Nissan pickup truck early Sunday morning.
The crash occurred in the west-bound lanes of the Moanalua Freeway near the Ola Lane overpass. Police said speed was an apparent factor in the crash.
Police initially said that Beasley may have been in the bed of the pickup when it slammed into a concrete barrier at about 1:45 a.m. Sunday. Police at the time said the driver of the vehicle apparently fled after the crash, leaving Beasley to die on the side of the roadway.
But police yesterday said they weren't sure who was driving the truck.
"That's still part of the investigation," said HPD spokesman Maj. Clayton Kau. "Right now we're considering everything and hopefully we can determine exactly what happened and who was the driver. But, once again, we are looking into the possibility that she was possibly the driver of the vehicle."
The medical examiner's office yesterday said the results of a toxicology screening of Beasley are pending.
Beasley was named to The Advertiser's All-State first team in her senior year in 2006. She helped lead Roosevelt to a second-place finish in the Division I state tournament that year.
Traffic investigators ask that anyone with information about this crash call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300 or the HPD vehicular homicide division at 529-3499.
"We haven't ruled out anything," Kau said. "We're looking at possibly that she may have been driving the car and we haven't ruled out that there may have been another driver."