Prison Break star Lane Garrison was behind the wheel in a weekend car crash that left a teenager dead, police said.
The 26-year-old actor, who played Tweener on the Fox drama, was driving two 15-year-old girls and a 17-year-old boy in his SUV Saturday night, when the vehicle jumped a curb and hit a tree in Beverly Hills.
Garrison escaped the crash with minor injuries. Both girls were also said to be injured—one critically.
The fourth passenger, Beverly Hills High School student Vahagn Setian, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Police said Monday that Garrison appeared to have been drinking before the crash, but that he was not immediately arrested at the scene.
"Mr. Garrison displayed symptoms of alcohol intoxication and the investigation into Mr. Garrison's impairment is ongoing," Beverly Hills Police Lieutenant Mitch McCann said in a statement Monday. "In addition to noting Mr. Garrison's symptoms, investigators also removed alcohol containers from the SUV, which was registered to Mr. Garrison."
Police were still trying to piece together why the teens were with the actor at the time of the crash. According to Garrison's attorney, Harland Braun, his client met the kids at a grocery store earlier in the evening and accompanied them to a party, where he had one drink. After an hour, he said he was leaving to meet a friend and allowed the teens to accompany him.
Braun told the Los Angeles Times that the actor "doesn't remember anything about the accident."
"He thinks he was driving but he can't swear to it," Braun said.
The attorney said that Garrison's first memories were of waking up at Century City Doctors Hospital with a cab voucher in his lap. He said that the actor was "despondent" and "overwhelmed" by the accident.
Braun also raised the possibility that someone may have slipped something in Garrison's drink and mentioned that the actor had been having trouble with his car's brakes in the days leading up to the crash.
On hearing of the accident, Jessica Simpson, who grew up with Garrison in Texas, issued a statement on her family's behalf.
"We love Lane very much and our thoughts and prayers are with him now," Simpson said through her rep.
It was the second car accident involving Garrison in recent weeks. While leaving a Los Angeles hotspot in October, he hit another car at a stoplight in an incident captured by paparazzi cameras. (Video of the fender-bender is online at tmz.com.)
Garrison's character was killed off on Prison Break in the Oct. 2 episode. He is next slated to appear in the action film Shooter, due out next year.