LOS ANGELES — Investigators are likely to seek the cellphone records of Bruce Jenner and other drivers involved in a multivehicle accident on Saturday to determine if any of the drivers was texting before the crash in which a woman was killed, authorities said Sunday.
Phone records are likely to be collected for all the drivers involved so investigators can check call and text data, Sgt. Philip Brooks of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.
Investigators may also request search warrants.
But Sergeant Brooks said it was difficult to determine if a driver was texting at the exact time of a collision. Investigators will look at signs of driver behavior like multiple texts that span a period of time leading up to, or including, the crash, he said.
“The problem is pinpointing the time of the accident,” he said. “If the accident occurred at 12:05 and 30 seconds, or 12:05 and 40 seconds, if you hung up before that, that’s useless information.”
The Sheriff’s Department has all of the vehicles and will inspect them to ensure they are mechanically sound or whether a defect prevented somebody from stopping in time.
Investigators are trying to determine who or what triggered the crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. One woman died, and seven others were injured in the accident, which occurred about noon on Saturday.
Mr. Jenner was traveling north when his black Cadillac Escalade rear-ended a Lexus sedan that had just struck the back of a black Toyota Prius, Sergeant Brooks said. The Lexus veered into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a black Hummer.
The driver of the Lexus — Kim Howe, 69, of Calabasas, Calif. — was pronounced dead at the scene.
The moment of impact was captured by celebrity photographers, who quickly posted the images on the Internet.
The photos show the white Lexus mangled in the front and back, facing the Hummer, which had a heavily damaged engine and its hood popped open. Mr. Jenner’s Escalade, which was pulling an off-road vehicle on a trailer, had a damaged front end.
Some initial reports on the Internet said that Mr. Jenner was being chased by paparazzi at the time of the crash, but the authorities said that there was no indication of that.
“Being a celebrity, he is often followed by paparazzi,” Sergeant Brooks said. “He was aware of that, and it doesn’t appear he took any evasive action to avoid the paparazzi.”
Authorities said Mr. Jenner cooperated with investigators, passed a field sobriety test and voluntarily submitted a blood sample to determine whether he was intoxicated, Sergeant Brooks said.
Mr. Jenner won a gold medal in the men’s decathlon at the 1976 Summer Olympics, but he is known to a younger generation as the patriarch of the Kardashian family.
