CHP settles over leaked photos of woman killed in crash

Five years after grisly photographs of an Orange County teen killed in a car accident began appearing online, the young woman’s family has settled a lawsuit filed against the California Highway Patrol for its role in disseminating the graphic images taken at the scene. The lawsuit launched an unprecedented legal discussion about the Internet. The photos from the Halloween 2006 accident show 18-year-old Nicole “Nikki” Catsouras maimed and nearly decapitated in her father’s mangled Porsche. The pictures were taken by CHP investigators and were never intended for public release but were leaked by two Highway Patrol dispatchers. Catsouras crashed after taking her father’s car without permission and accelerating to speeds of more than 100 mph on the 241 toll road in south Orange County. She clipped another car and swerved into a toll booth. Advertisement The young woman was so badly disfigured that her family wasn’t allowed to see her body after the crash, but images of the gruesome scene b...