Last Tuesday, Judge Thomas Anderle ruled that a lawsuit filed over the death of UCSB student Sierra Markee-Winkler can proceed. Siobhan Markee and Lon Winkler initiated the lawsuit in May 2015 after their daughter fell to her death from the cliffs of Sea Lookout Park in Isla Vista on the evening of May 4, 2014.
According to interviews conducted by the Sherriff’s Office, Markee-Winkler had been drinking and partying throughout the afternoon and evening at the music and arts festival Chilla Vista. At around 1:30 a.m., Markee-Winkler got into an argument with one of her roommates and ran towards the 6800 block of Del Playa Drive to calm down. She then borrowed a nearby woman’s phone to call her friend to tell her that she was at Sea Lookout Park and that she was okay. The next morning, a bicyclist found Markee-Winkler's body on the beach below the park.
Markee-Winkler’s parents are suing the County of Santa Barbara, Isla Vista Recreation and Park District, the Regents of the University of California, the State of California, and the California Coastal Commission for not ensuring the safety of the park they controlled where their daughter fell. They argue that there were no tall barriers preventing people from walking to the cliff’s edge, warning signs were not noticeable, and there was no lighting in the area at night. Furthermore, the county made significant changes to the park in the early 1980s by importing sand to make it more beach-like, which Markee and Winkler argue has contributed to cliff erosion.