Caitlyn Jenner said she is going through “tough times” following the July 2 death of her longtime friend and manager, Sophia Hutchins, who was killed when her speeding all-terrain vehicle (ATV) lost control on a winding road near their Malibu home and plummeted into a ravine.
Unfortunately for Jenner, such anguish following a traffic fatality is familiar. Ten years ago, Jenner herself was involved in a fatal, four-car accident on the nearby Pacific Coast Highway — while she was towing an ATV behind her Cadillac Escalade, as the Los Angeles Times reported. A 70-year-old woman was killed in the crash, after Jenner’s Escalade pushed the woman’s Lexus into an oncoming Hummer. Five members of a family, including two children, also were injured, while riding in the Hummer.
News reports on Hutchins’ July 2 death say she was driving a 2013 Polaris on winding Decker Canyon Road, near the turnoff to Jenner’s mountaintop home. But reports don’t indicate if it was the same ATV that Jenner was towing on top of a trailer in that February 2015 crash. News reports also don’t say whether the Polaris belonged to Jenner, but it’s known that Hutchins lived at Jenner’s home.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Eduardo Saucedo told the Daily Mail and People that 29-year-old Hutchins was apparently speeding in the black and blue-colored Solaris at about 11:30 a.m. July 2. That’s when she came upon a gray 2016 Mazda 6 and may have tried to maneuver around it.
“It looks like she may have been speeding and rear-ended the other car, and then that caused her to veer to the right and go off the cliff,” Saucedo told the Daily Mail. The Mazda was carrying two female passengers, who were not injured.
“It doesn’t seem like (Hutchins) was following them,” Saucedo continued. ” I think she just she came up on them and then hit the car. So it looked like she tried to maneuver to go around it, but she was going too fast and just ended up clipping the rear end of that Mazda, causing her to veer off and go off the cliff there.”
Reports say the ATV plunged about 350 feet into the ravine. After a search-and-rescue team reached the crash site, they pronounced Hutchins dead at the scene. The Daily Mail and People reported that Jenner came down to the crash site. The two women in the Mazda stayed to talk to deputies. It’s believed that one woman was a realtor showing the other person in the Mazda some property in the area.
Saucedo added that investigators will not know whether drugs or alcohol played a role in the incident until the coroner’s office prepares a toxicology report.
The day after the crash, a Daily Mail photographer found Jenner coming out of a Starbucks in Malibu looking “somber.” The 75-year-old gold medal decathlete from the 1976 Olympics said she was going through “tough times,” dealing with the loss of her friend.
Jenner has been friends with Hutchins, who also is a beauty entrepreneur, since 2015, when Hutchins was an undergraduate at Pepperdine University. That’s the same year that Jenner, the ex-spouse of Kris Jenner and former member of the Kardashian-Jenner reality TV clan, came out as transgender and announced her transition.
That’s also the same year that Jenner was involved in the PCH traffic fatality, which killed 70-year-old Kimberly Howe. Jenner had been driving her Cadillac Escalade, towing the ATV, when traffic ahead of her suddenly slowed, news reports said. She rear-ended Howe’s Lexus, which was already slowing or had stopped. The force of the impact pushed Howe’s vehicle into oncoming traffic, where it was struck head-on by the Hummer. Meanwhile, Jenner’s SUV also hit a Prius.
The case was reviewed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office but prosecutors concluded that they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jenner’s actions were unreasonable or negligent, the Daily Mail reported. She had been driving below the speed limit and started to brake her car, so prosecutors declined to pursue vehicular manslaughter charges.
Jenner, though, agreed to pay an $800,000 settlement to the family in the Hummer, according to ABC News. She also agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Howe’s family, the Los Angeles Times also reported.
Jenner, meanwhile, appeared in two seasons of her reality TV series, “I Am Cait,” and Hutchins prominently featured in the show.
Once Jenner and Hutchins met, they quickly bonded, People reported. Hutchins later credited Jenner with giving her the courage to make the same transition.
For a few years, Hutchins and Jenner were the subject of speculation that they were more than friends, as Hutchins was living in Jenner’s home. But Hutchins denied the romance rumors in a 2019 interview with The New York Times. Hutchins clarified that her role in Jenner’s life was to fill the void left by Jenner’s manager ex-wife, Kris Jenner.
Hutchins also shared Jenner’s impassioned support for Donald Trump and his MAGA politics, the Daily Mail said. In January, the two attended Trump’s inauguration festivities, with Hutchins posting a photo of the two of them at a party with with Judge Jeanine Pirro, the Daily Mail reported. Jenner also has faced backlash from the transgender community for supporting Trump, especially after he signed a number executive orders upon returning to the White House, including one that declared that there are “only two genders, male and female.”