A teenager accused of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in a crash that killed four of her friends pleaded not guilty last Wednesday in Marin County Superior Court. The criminal case is unfolding alongside a civil wrongful-death suit filed by the father of one of the victims that names both her and the county as defendants. The driver, a 17-year-old from Fairfax, is accused of losing control of her car last April while heading west on the winding San Geronimo Valley Drive in Woodacre. Prosecutors charged her with one misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter and other infractions for driving at an unsafe speed and violating the terms of her provisional license. According to investigators with the California Highway Patrol, the girl was going at least 20 to 25 miles per hour over the speed limit when she veered off the road and crashed into a redwood in a grove that lies just outside town. Though the vehicle’s event data recorder, known as a black box, was destroyed in the fire, patrol officers wrote that the car’s melted speedometer was stuck above 60 miles per hour. The force of the collision caused the car to erupt in flames, trapping the victims inside. Four passengers, all ages 14 to 15, were killed. The driver suffered severe burns, and a fifth passenger survived with minor injuries. All six girls attended Archie Williams High School; they had been on their way from Fairfax to a sleepover when the crash occurred. In a wrongful-death complaint filed in December, Mr. Katz, the father of 15-year-old victim Sienna Katz, alleges that the driver, who was 16 at the time of the crash, was speeding and failed to maintain control of the vehicle. It also accuses the county of creating a “dangerous condition” by failing to install guardrails or adequate warning signage along the curve. “The dangerous condition created a foreseeable risk that vehicles would leave the roadway and collide with fixed objects, resulting in catastrophic injury or death,” his attorneys wrote. County officials were aware the road was dangerous due to large redwoods adjacent to the travel lane on a curve, the complaint asserts. One year before the crash, in May 2024, a Tesla struck a tree less than 500 feet away from where the girls died, leaving a 17-year-old passenger with a traumatic brain injury and 13 broken bones. In a response filed last week, the county denied all allegations detailed in the complaint, writing that the plaintiff “voluntarily and knowingly” assumed the risks inherent to traveling down the road, and that the driver alone bore responsibility for the fatal injuries. Marin County counsel Brian Washington declined to comment on the litigation. County officials have previously confirmed that numerous government claims were filed in the wake of the crash, a required precursor to suing a public entity. So far, only the Katz claim has resulted in a civil lawsuit.