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Teen YouTube Star 'McSkillet' Kills Self, Two Others In Wrong-Way Sports Car Wreck
At least three cars were set ablaze in the deadly high-speed collision.
An 18-year-old who earned fame on YouTube as a video-game gambler died in a fiery crash on a San Diego interstate Thursday after he drove the wrong way along the highway, possibly at speeds of over 100 mph.
Trevor Heitmann, 18, who used the handle "McSkillet" in his YouTube videos, slammed head-on into an SUV at about 4:40 p.m., killing a woman and her 12-year old daughter. He had been driving a 2015 British McLaren 650S sports car which caught on fire and "disintegrated" on impact, CHP Officer Jake Sanchez told The San Diego Union Tribune.
"At the time of the crash, he could have been going over 100 mph," Sanchez told the paper. "The McLaren is one of the fastest cars in the world."
Heitmann had described the car as "pretty damn insane" in a YouTube video he'd made to show it off.
The Interstate 805 crash also killed Aileen Pizarro, 43, and her daughter Aryana Pizarro, who had been on their way to Orange County at the time of the accident, the woman's family said.
Both vehicles exploded into flames when they collided, halting traffic and causing serious injury to a fourth person in another vehicle, The Los Angeles Times reported. At least three vehicles were reportedly set ablaze, according to one witness.
Another person who called 911 described it as the whole northbound side of the freeway being "on fire," The Times said.
"People were running around ... and someone was on the ground," witness Mariwan Hama told The Times.
About 20 minutes before the crash, Heitmann had reportedly smashed through a metal gate at an elementary school, broken a window, and drove onto a soccer field while spinning his car in circles, reported VPesport.com, an online gaming news outlet.
Heitmann, who owned the Counter-Strike gambling website CSGObettings Magic, had reportedly made significant money by trading and selling "skins," or slick decals used for virtual gaming guns or other digital toys.
Valve Corp, the Washington-based publisher behind Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, had recently banned Heitmann from all its accounts and shut down his skin trading.
According to VPesport.com, his losses were estimated to be over $200,000 as a result of the shutdown.
Pizarro's family described the mom of three as a marriage and family counselor who had been working toward her license and was passionate about working with children who had to be removed from their homes due to abuse.
“She was selfless. She didn’t think about herself at all," her son Dominic Pizarro told The San Diego Union Tribune.
He described his younger sister, who had been about to start seventh grade, as a talented singer who hoped to grow up to be a jazz singer.
"That was the kind of music she loved," he told the paper. "She could sing any pop song on the radio. (But) she knew Billie Holiday just as much as she knew Bruno Mars."
[Photo: San Diego Fire-Rescue Department]
