Eric Chen Su has been charged with murder after investigators said he drove more than 90 mph in a 30 mph zone and caused a crash outside Apple’s Cupertino headquarters that killed 2-year-old Riley Kathryn Howard. The charge was filed after a Friday collision at 12:01 p.m. near the Apple Park Visitor Center, where investigators said Su struck a stopped blue Chevy sedan.
The speed was the heart of the case. Investigators said the black Toyota Camry Su was driving north on Tantau Avenue did not brake before the collision, and the Toyota’s speedometer was stuck at 100 mph after the crash. Riley Howard was inside the Chevy in a child safety seat when she died, and a woman in the other vehicle was hospitalized with head and spinal injuries.
Su worked at Apple’s Cupertino site, and investigators said the crash happened around the time employees typically take lunch, when vehicle, pedestrian and bicycle traffic increases in the area. In their statement of facts, investigators wrote, “A reasonable person would know this time of day was busier than normal,” and video footage from Apple and witness accounts were cited in support of that conclusion.
That detail also leaves one point unresolved: it was unclear whether Su was on his lunch break when the crash happened. The murder charge shows prosecutors are treating the case as more than a traffic death, likely because investigators say the speed was extreme enough to put other people in obvious danger, not just to violate the limit. The filings came from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office and the criminal complaint in Santa Clara County Superior Court, but no court date or next step was included in the materials made public.
For Riley Howard’s family, the legal label will not change the loss. For the case itself, it sets up the question that now matters most: whether the facts prosecutors laid out are enough to prove murder, not only a fatal crash.
