A YouTube personality known as “McSkillet” was identified Friday as the 18-year-old man who was driving the wrong way in a high-end sports car when he crashed into another vehicle on a San Diego freeway, killing himself and two occupants of the other vehicle.
Trevor J. Heitmann died in the fiery high-speed crash that left his vehicle “fragmented and … strewn across” the 805 Freeway in the University City area Thursday afternoon, the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office said.
Heitmann’s cause of death was blunt force trauma, the medical examiner’s office said.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the victims in the SUV were a mother and daughter. The coroner’s office isn’t sure when they will be positively identified, a California Highway Patrol officer said at a news conference Friday afternoon.
“This is very tragic,” CHP Officer Jake Sanchez said. “It was a horrible thing to witness and have to see and be part of.”
“We’re talking total destruction of one car and the other vehicle burned,” Sanchez added. “Even if you had a seatbelt on, there’s nothing to hold you in place.”
Earlier Friday, students at La Jolla Country Day school told KTLA sister station KSWB in San Diego the teen driver was Heitmann – their former classmate and the online gamer who went by “McSkillet.”
Students expressed shock and sadness over the reported death; some said they first heard about it through his close friends.
Heitmann’s neighbors told KSWB they saw San Diego police at his house Thursday.
His death was widely reported in industry publications and online, with many gaming enthusiasts on Twitter identifying the driver as the popular YouTuber, according to the Union-Tribune.
The teen was behind the wheel of a 2014 McLaren that was traveling south in the carpool lane of the northbound 805 Freeway about 4:35 p.m. when his vehicle slammed head-on into an SUV, authorities said. The SUV burst into flames, and both occupants – a 43-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl – were later found dead inside, according to the medical examiner’s office.
“At the time of the crash, he could have been going over 100 mph,” Sanchez told the Union-Tribune. “The McLaren is one of the fastest cars in the world.”
The SUV was “completely disintegrated,” Sanchez said Friday.
The area where Heitmann entered the freeway going the wrong way is “clearly marked,” Sanchez said.
The initial fiery wreck triggered a series of chain-reaction collisions involving at least six other vehicles. One other person was hospitalized with serious injuries, but is expected to survive.
The northbound freeway was shut down for several hours, bringing the evening rush-hour commute to a halt.
According to KSWB, Heitmann rose to prominence as a “skins trader” in the video game “Counter Strike: Global Offensive,” also known as “CS:GO.” He had earned a hefty sum from e-sports products, but was recently banned from making them, according to the Union-Tribune, which cited numerous posts on Twitter.
Heitmann also had a YouTube channel with more than 875,000 subscribers, and many of his videos have been viewed hundreds of thousand times. His last video appeared to have been posted some five months ago.
In one video, from December 2017, Heitmann discussed his vehicle, a 641-horsepower black McLaren 650S, which he said “beats just about every other super car in a drag race.” He said he’d had the car for a few months.
Students told KSWB Heitmann was known to drive the luxury English sports car.
It was unclear what led up to the wrong-way collision, but about 30 minutes prior to the crash, a McLaren slammed through the gates of an elementary school in the Carmel Valley area before speeding off, according to the San Diego Police Department.
The driver then got out of the vehicle, smashed a school building window and then sped off, witnesses reported.
Sanchez confirmed that Heitmann and his McLaren are believed to be involved in the elementary school incident.
“I have no information regarding … why he chose that school … or why he even got on the freeway the wrong direction,” Sanchez said. “I don’t have anything to clarify why or what possibly made him do what he did – whether he was under the influence at the time, whether he was having any other issues.”
The McLaren was registered to a limited liability company, Sanchez said.
KTLA’s Melissa Pamer contributed to this article.
