Nikki Catsouras was tragically killed in a horrific 2006 car accident on Halloween while driving her Dad's Porsche sports car. Nicole 'Nikki' Catsouras was only 18 years old at the time of the crash.
If that isn't hard enough for a family to have to endure, the California Highway Patrol released graphic photographs from the accident and it has them under fire.
ABC's "20/20" reported on the controversy surrounding the release of her accident photos on December 7.
If you cannot empathise with the parents and family and imagine the horror of seeing their beautiful daughter exploited in such a heinous way, than you are simply cold as a stone.
Now to make it that much more horrifying, shortly after their 18-year-old daughter died in the accident, Christos and Lesli Catsouras began receiving anonymous emails and text messages containing pictures of the accident. Some of the graphic photos depicted Nikki's decapitated body still strapped inside the vehicle.
Nice. If you can believe it, someone was even cruel enough to set up a fake MySpace page pretending to be a tribute, but posted the photos there instead.
The photos were taken by the California Highway Patrol officers and e-mailed outside the department, which spread around the Internet making their way to nearly 1,600 Web sites, according to an investigator hired by the family.
Since that time, the Catsouras family has lived in fear that the pictures will be forced on them over and over through email and on websites.
The images have reportedly become so persistent that Lesli Catsouras has stopped checking her e-mail. Nikki's three younger sisters have been forbidden to use the Internet, and 16-year-old Danielle was taken out of school to be home schooled.
The Catsouras family is fighting back with the only weapon available to them, the courts. They are suing, and a judge in California has ruled the lawsuit can move forward.
At a hearing in Santa Ana, Judge Stephen L. Perk said the CHP potentially could be held liable for the actions of its employees. No trial date has been set.
The hearing did not address two individuals named as defendants, Thomas O'Donnell and Aaron Reich. The lawsuit identifies them as CHP employees who played a role in causing the images of the decapitated Nikki, still strapped into her father's Porsche, to be posted on more than 2,500 web sites.
According to Catsouras family attorney Tyler Offenhauser, the ruling is a significant step toward getting justice for Nikki because a jury will now decide whether the CHP must take responsibility for its employees' conduct of disseminating the graphic photos outside the agency.
Lesli Catsouras, Nikki's mother, said she is happy with the judge's ruling but upset that the CHP continues to fight the lawsuit.
"They are doing everything they can to wiggle out of taking responsibility for this mess," she said. "They have the authority and the resources to clean up this mess that they made, and yet they still have done nothing to help us."
Nikki had never driven the Porsche 911 before and was going about 100 miles per hour on the toll road when she clipped a car, sped out of control and slammed into an unmanned toll booth.
The driver of the other car was not seriously injured. Nikki had not been drinking and no drugs were found in her system.
As crazy as it sounds, there have actually been postings on forums suggesting that Nicole deserved to die and that the family should just be quiet and stop trying to capitalize off of their daughter's death.
Some of the accident photos can be found here. We do not hot link to the graphic photos.
The graphic photos of the accident can be found at this link if you really must see them. You maintain responsibility for your own concience and motives. ReputationDefender.com is working with the family in getting the pictures and hate filled comments removed from the web. They have been successful in ridding the internet of more than 1,600.
You might ask, "Why provide a link"? The answer is simple. It makes no sense to report on something so salacious without the evidence of the disgusting activity. It is only a matter of time before the link no longer works and in our opinion, that's a good thing.
