Booze, Speed Tied to Crash That Killed Survivor of Boston Bombing

Just hours after a rider in the ill-fated Ferrari promised no speeding in Dubai
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2016 9:31 AM CST
Booze, Speed Tied to Crash That Killed Survivor of Boston Bombing
Cody Nixon just hours before the fatal crash.   (Instagram)

"Just landed into Dubai picked up the Ferrari! Don't worry I won't speed ;)" was Cody Nixon's final Instagram post, showing the Canadian boxer standing next to said yellow Ferrari just hours before the crash early Sunday that killed him and three others, including Boston Marathon bombing survivor Victoria McGrath, 23. Now a Dubai prosecutor suggests that the foursome—which also included Priscilla Perez Torres (McGrath's roommate at Northeastern University) and James Portuondo, said to be Nixon's cousin—didn’t heed Nixon's social media proclamation and that both alcohol and speeding were involved in the accident, the AP reports. Per Salah Bu Farousha, Dubai's chief traffic prosecutor, the Ferrari 458 Spider two-seater jumped a curb, split in half, and "lit on fire," NBC News reports. One witness says the car hit a pole.

"From my initial investigation, they had lost control of the car," Farousha tells the AP, though he declined to ID the victims (other Dubai officials speaking anonymously did so). "The road is curved. They were driving at a high speed in a [25mph] zone. The speed did not match at all the speed limit." He added that investigators are scrutinizing an in-car device to figure out what the actual speed was. Farousha also tells NBC that "all were drinking alcohol." It's still unclear who was driving: Al Arabiya says it was believed to be Nixon, but Gulf News points to Portuondo, and Farousha tells the AP that hotel surveillance video taken 10 minutes or so before the crash shows Portuondo in the driver's seat. Portuondo, McGrath, and Torres died at the scene, while Nixon died at a local hospital, Farousha says, per the CBC. (A statement from McGrath's family ran in the Boston Herald.)

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