• Brian M. McGrath, 22, a USC senior from Fairfield, Conn., who was the driver
• Billings S. Fuess IV, 22, a former USC student who was originally from Ridgefield, Conn., but lived in Columbia. He was in the front passenger seat.
• Kelsey “Kel” C. Harris, 23, a USC student from Louisville, Ky., who was riding in the rear passenger seat
• Melinda “Mindy” S. Pipp, 24, who was from Wisconsin but lived in Columbia, who was riding in the rear driver seat
McGrath and Fuess had been best friends since high school, Watts said. McGrath was a history major at USC, and Fuess was a student there last semester.
Harris and Pipp recently had become roommates in a cottage on Bratton Street in Melrose Heights. Both worked in the restaurant industry. Pipp was on the staff at Wild Hare, and Harris was a part-time server at Harper’s Restaurant in Five Points.
It was unclear Thursday how the two men and two women knew each other.
USC president Harris Pastides released a statement expressing the school’s sorrow over losing “three members of our university family.” He offered free grief counseling to students and faculty who need help coping.
“Losing a young life is the most painful experience and yesterday four vibrant spirits were lost,” Pastides wrote. “Please keep their surviving family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.”
Wednesday was Harris’s birthday, Watts said. She had taken a couple of days off work to celebrate, said Mike Simmons, a Harper’s manager.
The four victims had been seen together at local nightspots prior to the wreck, Watts said. The group left the Wild Hare Sports Cafe after midnight. Pipp, who worked there, had not worked Tuesday night, Watts said.
The last known place the four were seen together was at Uncle Festers Bar, a nightspot near Huger and Devine streets. Witnesses who saw the group at Uncle Festers said they left together in McGrath’s car about 3:30 in the morning, Watts said.
McGrath lived in the Carolina Walk condominiums near Williams-Brice Stadium, and it was likely the group was going to his home, Watts said.
The accident happened about 5 a.m. when McGrath lost control of his Dodge Charger while traveling down George Rogers Boulevard. The car slammed into the corner of the Farm Bureau Insurance office near the Shop Road intersection.
The car caught fire, but autopsies indicated that all four died from their injuries before the fire started, Watts said.
Columbia police are still investigating what caused McGrath to lose control of his car, said Jennifer Timmons, the department’s spokeswoman.
The nature of the victims’ injuries indicate the car was speeding as it traveled south down George Rogers, Watts said. But it will be up to police to figure out how fast McGrath was driving.
Toxicology results are pending, and Watts said the results may indentify another factor in the wreck.
Watts described the crash as one of the most emotional and challenging cases he has worked in his 30-plus years in the coroner’s office.
The impact of the crash was severe, Watts said. And the fire, which badly burned the victims, complicated the identification process. The coroner’s investigators used witness statements, dental X-rays, surgical records and tattoos on some of the victims to identify them, Watts said.
Three of the four young people came from divorced homes in which the parents had remarried and lived in different states. That led investigators to track down families from Wisconsin, Connecticut, Kentucky, Florida and South Carolina, he said. The grief was widespread.
Another complicating factor was a Florida driver’s license with a fifth person’s name on it that was found in the car, Watts said. The coroner’s office contacted Florida authorities who went to the woman’s family’s home in Florida and learned that her license had been reported stolen. The woman’s mother then tracked down her daughter and son, who were having lunch together in Florida, Watts said.
As for the license, Watts said, “How it got here, we don’t know.”
On Thursday evening, a group of friends gathered outside the Farm Bureau office to place flowers and messages in memory of their friends.
“I will miss your gorgeous face and charming personality every day,” someone had written on a poster addressed to Pipp.
A few charred pieces of the car lay among the dirt and rubble at the accident scene, and several of the friends’ hands were covered in black soot because they had been sifting through the remnants.
J.T. MacMannis, a USC senior, clutched a blackened parking placard from Carolina Walk that he had picked up in the insurance office’s parking lot. MacMannis, who is from Ridgefield, Conn., said he graduated from Ridgefield High School in Connecticut with McGrath and Fuess.
He rocked back and forth as he tried to explain his grief. Nearby, four girls cried as they stared at the wreck’s aftermath.
“I want to let everyone know what great kids they were and how they’ll be greatly missed,” MacMannis said. “I’ll miss them dearly.”
