A man who the authorities contend deliberately crashed his car into another one on a Southern California road last Sunday, killing three of the six teenagers inside, did so because the group had played a so-called doorbell ditch prank on him, prosecutors said this week. The man, Anurag Chandra, 42, faces several murder charges for his role in the Temescal Canyon Road crash, which the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said on Thursday occurred because of the prank. In a doorbell ditch, also commonly known as a ding-dong-ditch, a person rings a doorbell and tries to run away before anyone opens the door. After one of the boys had been dared, all six teenagers drove to a nearby home on Mojeska Summit Road in Corona, about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles, the district attorney’s office said, citing the California Highway Patrol’s investigation. The boy rang the doorbell and returned to the 2002 Prius that they were riding in, and the group took off.

Source: New York Times January 25, 2020 01:49 UTC