Woman killed in Tarzana crash Near Los Angeles California

The woman killed in a violent seven-car chain reaction crash in Tarzana on Monday night has been identified as 64-year-old Cynthia Kirk, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office said.
Kirk, a resident of Hollywood Hills, was leaving a league bowling night at Corbin Bowl when her car was struck from behind while she was stopped at a red light at the 101 Freeway eastbound entrance on Ventura Boulevard near Vanalden Avenue, authorities said.
A research analyst at Woodland Hills firm Scherzer International, Kirk previously worked at the Los Angeles Times as a research interviewer and as a reporter at Variety in the late 1970s through the mid-1980s.
Brian Alpert, a manager at the bowling alley, said Kirk was a regular — always the first to show for the regular league nights.
“It’s been pretty tragic news around here. She was always pleasant. When I saw her Monday night, she was walking by, humming and singing a song,” he said.Kirk was most recently a research analyst at Woodland Hills firm Scherzer International, where she compiled reports in advance of business transactions for a broad spectrum of corporate clients.
“She had a wonderful, dry sense of humor,” Carol Scherzer, founder of the company, recalled.
Jeff Hauptman, human resources director at Scherzer, said Kirk’s co-workers were stunned to learn of her death. “It was so shocking and so unexpected. I think people have had a hard time wrapping their arms around it,” he said.Prior to joining Scherzer in 2005, Kirk worked for as a research interviewer for the Times, and prior to that she was a music reviewer for Variety. She also contributed to The Hollywood Reporter According to police, a 1999 Ford Taurus was traveling at high speed eastbound along Ventura when it slammed into a vehicle at a red light at the 101 Freeway on-ramp, causing a chain reaction that involved seven cars, including Kirk’s blue 2003 Saturn Ion.
She was pronounced dead at the scene. Three others were treated by paramedics and released. The driver of the Taurus was also injured and transported to a local hospital