A driver was arrested and charged in connection to a deadly car wreck in a New Jersey neighborhood that took the lives of two people from Maryland visiting their grandchildren, law enforcement said.
Abeer Viriani faces two counts each of aggravated manslaughter and second-degree vehicular homicide for the crash that occurred around 6 p.m. Tuesday in Highland Park, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office. The horrific rush hour scene near North 10th Avenue and Raritan Avenue involved three vehicles, one of which was pushed up to the front of a business along the road due to the impact of the crash.
Covered bodies were seen laying near one of the vehicles. On Wednesday, the prosecutor's office identified the victims of the Subaru that Viriani, of Iselin, had struck. Peter Palmer, 75, and Carol Paul, 77, were pronounced dead at the scene. The grandparents were from Easton, Maryland, according to Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolanda Ciccone.
Neighbors said the couple had been visiting their grandchildren in the area. Their car was twisted in the wreckage, according to neighbors, leaving them trapped inside as at least two of the cars were on fire.
One neighbor, Dana Cappa, said she saw a survivor pleading with another crash victim to hang on.
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"He said 'don't die on me, don't die on me,' he was trying to help his friend," Cappa said.
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The driver of the other car Viriani struck, a Hyundai Elantra, suffered minor injuries. Viriani, 34, was seriously injured in the crash and was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where both are expected to survive.
Attorney information for Viriani, who was being held pending a pre-trial detention, was not immediately known.
Officials have not given a possible cause of the crash, but locals say something like this was bound to happen. They say they see cars racing one another all the time, flying down the road that connects Edison to Highland Park.
