Photo| Accident Scene| Photo Courtesy Santa Barbara County Fire Department
Santa Barbara County – California State Highway 1, the primary route connecting the Point Conception
area and community of Lompoc to the principal coastal route U.S. 101, was the site of what CHP Officer
Gabe Rodriguez described as “a fiery head-on vehicle crash” that killed to young women in the
pre-dawn hours of October 28th.
According to Rodriguez, a Chevy Malibu in which 19-year-old Jenna Causby and 20-year-old
Dorothyann Guthrie—both residents of Lompoc—were traveling occurred when a Ford C-max
slammed into their vehicle at more than 80 mph. The crash took place on an undivided two-
lane section of Highway 1 as the Ford C-max, driven by 22-year-old Kyle Nelson of Goleta
crossed into oncoming northbound traffic in a high-speed attempt to pass “slower traffic
traveling southbound in front of him.”
Upon impact, “both vehicles were engulfed in flames” which were ultimately controlled by
responding Santa Barbara County Fire Department personnel. Both Guthrie and Causby were
declared dead at the scene while Nelson was transported by ambulance to Santa Barbara
Cottage Hospital “with major injuries.”
All evidence indicated that Nelson “wantonly passed over solid double yellow lines, traveling
the wrong way and directly into the path” of the car driven by Causby. Once his medical
condition was stabilized at the hospital, Nelson was arrested on a charge of gross vehicular
manslaughter while intoxicated.
Photo: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Fire Department
by Robert L. McCullough
