Tuesday marks the first anniversary since a speeding car tore through a vacant lot in Brunswick, killing four people and injuring many more.

Two mothers who lost sons that warm spring evening say they're angry and frustrated with the lack of progress in the criminal investigation.

"Someone needs to be accountable for this. It is senseless to me," Keneka Kidd said last week. Her 6-year-old son, Jaylen "Coconut" Ellis, died instantly after Christopher Castillo's Chevrolet smacked the child with enough force to break the motorcycle helmet he was wearing.

"I know the families are upset and they want someone charged," Detective Cpl. Agnes Roberts said last week.

Of the eight fatal crashes she's investigated in the past 12 months, Roberts admits, "this is the hardest one I've ever done. It's horrendous."

But after interviewing dozens of witnesses, including surviving victims, Roberts said the result of her investigation may not please too many people.

"Everyone wants to make it about drag-racing but that was over by the time this happened. It was a nasty accident, that's all it was," Roberts said last week.

Roberts said she will submit her final investigation to the Lake County prosecutor's office this week and let lawyers there review evidence and decide what, if any, charges to file.

Sandra Tonevich, mother of Benjamin Harper III, said "only in Gary" would the investigation drag on for a year.

"It's pathetic," the Miller resident said. "These people didn't have a chance."

Harper, 31, died on the grassy lot at 5th Avenue and Colfax Street, but not right away as officials reported the night of the crash. His mother said her only son bled to death from a lacerated aorta and liver while waiting for medics to treat him.

"I have the autopsy report. I have every piece of paper, every newspaper clipping, every report. But I don't have justice," Tonevich said last week.

Also killed were Conrad Richardson and Billy Charles Muldrew Jr.

Although Castillo had been seen drag racing up and down 5th Avenue earlier that night, police say the competition was over by the time his eastbound Chevrolet Caprice struck Fred Brown's car as the 84-year-old made a left turn in front of him.

Police said Brown may have been blinded by late afternoon glare when he turned south from 5th Avenue onto Colfax Street. But witnesses at the scene blame Castillo, saying he was speeding.

Castillo was injured in the crash and hospitalized.

"But he's never even had his license suspended," Tonevich said. "My son just stopped to talk to some friends. And he paid for that with his life."

Kidd said she steered witnesses to Roberts in the weeks after the crash.

"I've cooperated with the detective over the case; I helped her with witnesses," Kidd said.

"I don't care who gets charged, but what (Castillo) did was reckless. He's out here doing the same thing, driving up and down in the same kind of car. He killed four people that day and he owes us an apology. He never gave us one," she added.

Kidd said Castillo knew her son and played with him.

Seeing Castillo adds to her grief, she said.

Harper's four children were left without a father. One child is in counseling and Tonevich's daughter grieves daily.

"I worry about her more than I worry about myself. She's mad at the world," Tonevich said.

As the one-year anniversary approaches, Tonevich wonders if the driver she says caused her son's death will ever stand before a judge.

"He's changed people's lives forever, and he's still other there driving," Tonevich said.

Kidd's 5-year-old daughter witnessed the crash and watched her brother die. "She talks to him. She is taking it very hard. All my kids are in therapy," Kidd said.

On Good Friday, Kidd placed a blue, cellophane-wrapped Easter basket at the spot where Jaylen died.

Birthday balloons, stuffed animals, placards and toys lie in a jumbled heap on the spot, just a few feet from a similar memorial

A | A | A The parents of two high school seniors who died in a car crash say their sons were left near the road for hours after police overlooked them while investigating the accident.

Brandon Smith and Dominique Green, both 18, were killed in the single-vehicle accident early Saturday, according to the Lake County coroner's office. The two other occupants survived the crash and told police and emergency workers that two of their friends were still at the crash site, said Darren Smith, a Gary firefighter and Brandon's uncle.

But Arthur Smith, Brandon's father, said authorities didn't find the boys' bodies — he said he found them himself when he went to the crash scene hours later.

"It took me all of five minutes to find the boys dead," Smith said. "They were right there, I didn't look under anything. I just seen my son, I seen my baby."

Calls to Gary Police seeking comment were not returned Monday.

Gary Police Department Commander Samuel Roberts earlier told the Post-Tribune that the officer who responded to the accident did not deviate from departmental procedures. He could not explain why the two were left along the roadside and said he did not yet know all the details of the case.

"I don't know if the officer was told there were four people in the vehicle or if the occupant said he had dropped off the other people," Roberts said. "Right now, what I do know is that the police department responded and an accident report was taken."

Jacquelyn Green said she is not blaming anyone for her son's death.

Mourners held a vigil at the accident scene during the weekend, with some saying that the boys might have survived if authorities had found them sooner. Mayor Rudy Clay also stopped by the crash scene to offer condolences, but he referred all inquiries to Gary Police Chief Thomas Houston.

100 days ago

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