The Associated Press
LAWRENCE, N.J. — A truck driver accused of making an illegal U-turn on a New Jersey highway before crashing his vehicle into an SUV carrying a Pennsylvania family was charged Saturday in the deaths of a woman and her two young sons.
The crash between the truck and the SUV carrying five people happened at around 6:30 p.m. Friday on Route 1 in Lawrence, Mercer County prosecutors told The Times of Trenton.
Killed in the crash were 25-year-old Jamella Tisdale, her infant son, Jaden, and her 9-year-old son, Jaevon Durante, all of Levittown. The infant’s father, Shaqwan Tisdale, and the woman’s 8-year-old daughter, Mellady Durante, remained hospitalized Saturday in stable condition.
Emergency responders found the SUV wedged under the bed of the tractor-trailer, and crews had to stabilize the truck’s bed before they could extricate the passengers. It took several hours to free the victims from the wreckage, Trenton Battalion Chief Robert Tharp said.
The truck driver, 45-year-old Richard Williams, of New York City’s Brooklyn borough, was charged with three counts of death by auto and was being held on $100,000 bail. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had retained an attorney.