3 dead in high-speed crash in NE Philly

Sandmeyer Lane, a mile-long offshoot of busy Red Lion Road in Bustleton, has long been known as a magnet for fast drivers, locals say - skid marks permanently tattooed on its cul-de-sac, workers accustomed to screeching tires and revving engines.

But tragedy struck just before midnight Wednesday, police said, when a 2007 Acura TL carrying five people flew off the road at about 75 m.p.h. and crashed into a tree, killing three passengers, injuring two people, including the driver, and jackknifing the vehicle in half.

A second, unidentified car was traveling "really close" to the speeding Acura, said Capt. John Wilczynski of the Accident Investigation Division.

Wilczynski declined to label the incident an illegal street race - a subculture that city lawmakers have tried to quell - but did say the Acura was doomed when it barreled into a sharp curve.

"The speed did it," he said. "The recklessness did it."

Two of those killed were 17-year-old girls, Wilczynski said. They were found ejected from the car and were dead at the scene, he said.

A 20-year-old man was found dead and trapped inside the back passenger seat, according to Lt. Jamill Taylor.

Another male, 17 years old, was found on the road with "severe head, femur, and pelvic injuries," police said. He was in critical condition at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

And the 20-year-old driver was taken to Einstein Medical Center before police arrived on Sandmeyer Lane, Wilczynski said. Police on Thursday afternoon were not certain what condition he was in or how he got to the hospital.

Wilczynski declined to identify any of the victims. He said the driver had been cooperative with police.

Authorities were still searching for information related to the second car, Wilczynski said.

The crash occurred at 11:44 p.m. Wednesday, according to police.

Taylor said it appeared that the Acura, after speeding up a straightaway, clipped the right-hand curb as it sped around a right-hand curve.

The car swerved out of control, Taylor said, eventually jumping another curb and smashing into a tree several yards back from the road, in front of Seravalli Inc., a contracting firm.

Wilczynski said surveillance video showed a quick burst of light at the time of the crash.

The Acura was essentially split into two, Wilczynski said, as if splayed in the shape of a banana peel.

By Thursday morning, the wreckage had been removed from the site. Small scars were still visible on the curb, in the grass, and around the tree trunk.

Christopher Dillman, who works on the street, didn't see the wreckage on his way to work, at Marquis Auto Restorations, just past the scene.

But Dillman, 36, said cars regularly speed on Sandmeyer. He walks home in the afternoon, he said, and regularly looks over his shoulder at vehicles whizzing by.

"Thinking they're Fast and Furious, basically," Dillman said, referencing the street-racing movie series.

Vlad Sorokin, manager of Feretti Motors on the street, said cars speed there "24/7."

"Sometimes if I'm sitting in a car and start going home, I can see it in the mirror, like, 'Whoosh!' " he said.

Legislators have made efforts to slow speeding vehicles in the area. After a mother and her children were struck and killed by a car that was street racing on Roosevelt Boulevard in 2013, then-State Sen. Mike Stack (D., Phila.), now lieutenant governor, proposed a bill that would have placed speed-enforcement cameras on the heavily trafficked Boulevard. The bill did not pass.

Still, Dillman hopes that in the wake of this accident, something could be done to slow vehicles on his street, such as speed bumps.

Of the deaths, he said: "It's a shame. It's just senseless."

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