This is a story about a photo—an image so horrific we can't print it in NEWSWEEK. The picture shows the lifeless body of an 18-year-old Orange County girl named Nikki Catsouras, who was killed in a devastating car crash on Halloween day in 2006. The accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn't allow her parents, Christos and Lesli Catsouras, to identify their daughter's body. But because of two California Highway Patrol officers, a digital camera and e-mail users' easy access to the 'Forward' button, there are now nine photos of the accident scene, taken just moments after Nikki's death, circulating virally on the Web. In one, her nearly decapitated head is drooping out the shattered window of her father's Porsche.

Nikki Catsouras Death Photography Deutsch Die
Nikki Catsouras Death Photos
Nikki Catsouras Death Photographs Accident

The Web is full of dark images, so perhaps the urge to post these tragic pictures isn't surprising. But for the Catsouras family, the photos are a daily torment. Just days after Nikki's death, her father, a local real-estate agent, clicked open an e-mail that appeared to be a property listing. Onto his screen popped his daughter's bloodied face, captioned with the words 'Woohoo Daddy! Hey daddy, I'm still alive.' Nikki's sisters—Danielle, 18, Christiana, 16, and Kira, 10—have managed to avoid the photos, but live in fear that they'll happen upon them. And so the Catsourases are spending thousands in legal fees in an attempt to stop strangers from displaying the grisly images—an effort that has transformed Nikki's death into a case about privacy, cyber-harassment and image control.

The Nikki Catsouras photographs controversy concerns the leaked photographs of Nicole 'Nikki' Catsouras (March 4, 1988 – October 31, 2006), who died at the age of 18 in a high speed car crash after losing control of a Porsche 911 Carrera, which belonged to her father, and colliding with a toll booth in Lake Forest, California. Photographs of Catsouras' badly disfigured body were published on the internet, leading her family to take legal action due to the distress this caused.

In the next few weeks, as the Catsouras family was trying to cope with Nikki’s death, photos of Nikki’s remains began circulating online. Some of the graphic images – leaked by people who worked. Sep 26, 2012 In the next few weeks, as the Catsouras family was trying to cope with Nikki’s death, photos of Nikki’s remains began circulating online. Some of the graphic images – leaked by people who worked.

Nikki Catsouras Death Photography Deutsch Die

The picture shows the lifeless body of an 18-year-old Orange County girl named Nikki Catsouras, who was killed in a devastating car crash on Halloween day in 2006. The accident was so gruesome the. Jan 31, 2012 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.

Background[edit]

Circumstances of the accident[edit]

On the date of the accident, October 31, 2006, Catsouras and her parents ate lunch together at the family home in Ladera Ranch. After lunch, her father, Christos Catsouras, left for work while her mother remained at home. Around 10 minutes later, her mother heard a door shut along with footsteps out the back door. As she walked toward the garage, she was able to see her daughter reversing out of the driveway in her father's Porsche 911 Carrera — a car she was not allowed to drive.^[1] Her mother called her father, who began driving around trying to find his daughter.^[1] While doing so, he called 9-1-1 for assistance, apparently minutes before the accident, and was put on hold. When he was taken off hold, the dispatcher informed him of the accident.

Accident[edit]

Catsouras was traveling on the 241 Toll Road in Lake Forest at approximately 1:38 pm, when she clipped a Honda Civic that she was attempting to pass on the right at over 100 miles per hour (160 km/h).^[2] The Porsche crossed the road's broad median, which lacks a physical barrier on that segment, and crashed into an unmanned concrete toll booth near the Alton Parkway interchange. The Porsche was destroyed, and Catsouras was killed on impact. Toxicological tests revealed traces of cocaine in Catsouras' body, but no alcohol.^[1]

Leaked photographs[edit]

According to Newsweek, the Catsouras 'accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn't allow her parents to identify their daughter's body'.^[1] However, photographs of the scene of Catsouras' death were taken by California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers as part of standard fatal traffic collision procedures. These photographs were then forwarded to colleagues, and were leaked onto the Internet.

Two CHP employees, Aaron Reich and Thomas O'Donnell, admitted to releasing the photographs in violation of CHP policy. O'Donnell later stated in interviews that he only sent the photos to his own e-mail account for viewing at a later time, while Reich stated that he had forwarded the pictures to four other people.^[3] Catsouras' parents soon discovered the photographs posted online. The pictures had gained much attention, including a fake MySpace tribute website that contained links to the photographs.^[3] People also anonymously e-mailed copies of the photos to the Catsouras family with misleading subject headers, in one case captioning the photo sent to the father with the words 'Woohoo Daddy! Hey daddy, I'm still alive.'^[1] This led the Catsouras family to withdraw from Internet use and, concerned that their youngest daughter might be taunted with the photographs, to begin homeschooling her.^[3]

The online harassment aspects of the case were covered by Werner Herzog in his 2016 documentary Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World.

Legal action by the family[edit]

The Catsouras family sued the California Highway Patrol and the two dispatch supervisors allegedly responsible for leaking the photographs in the Superior Court of California for Orange County. Initially, a judge ruled that it would be appropriate to move forward with the family's legal case against the CHP for leaking the photographs.^[3]

An internal investigation led the CHP to issue a formal apology and took action to prevent similar occurrences in the future, after discovering that departmental policy had been violated by the two dispatch supervisors responsible for the leakage of the photographs.^[3] O'Donnell was suspended for 25 days without pay, and Reich quit soon after, 'for unrelated reasons', according to his lawyer.^[1] However, when the defendants moved for summary judgment, Judge Steven L. Perk dismissed the case against the Department of the California Highway Patrol after both Reich and O'Donnell were removed as defendants. Judge Perk ruled that the two were not under any responsibility for protecting the privacy of the Catsouras family, effectively ending the basis for the case. The superior court judge who dismissed the Catsouras' case ruled in March 2008 that while the dispatchers' conduct was 'utterly reprehensible',^[1] there was no law that allowed it to be punishable.

The CHP sent websites 'cease and desist' notices in an effort to get the photos off the Internet. The Catsouras family hired ReputationDefender to help remove the photos, but they continue to spread. ReputationDefender estimates that it has persuaded websites to remove 2,500 instances of the photos, but accepts that removing them from the Internet completely is impossible.^[4] Attorney and blogger Ted Frank wrote that even though the media were sympathetic to the parents' plight, 'the Streisand effect has resulted in far more dissemination of the gruesome photos'.^[5]

On February 1, 2010, it was reported that the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District had reversed Judge Perk's grant of summary judgment, and instea