Panayiota Demetriou and her Taxi driver Die in NEW YORK Crash
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| PENNY, Rest In Peace, |
A man suspected in the beating death of a financial worker in Manhattan in 2006 now faces charges of vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving after a crash that killed the driver of a livery cab and her passenger early Sunday in Queens, the police said.
Panayiota Demetriou was killed on Sunday with her cab's driver, Bessy Velasquez.
They said the man, Daryush Omar, 23, of Plainview, in Nassau County, broadsided the moving cab with his Range Rover. The cab had previously dropped off two other passengers, a couple, who were not injured.
The crash, which took place shortly after 3 a.m. at 34th Street and 31st Avenue in Astoria, killed Bessy Velasquez, 41, a driver for Myrtle Car Service in Brooklyn, and a passenger, Panayiota Demetriou, 30, a Cypriot immigrant who, according to friends, worked as a psychologist in the emergency room of a Brooklyn hospital and was completing her dissertation in child psychology.
Ms. Velasquez had just dropped off two other passengers, Ms. Demetriou’s best friend and that woman’s male companion, and was heading toward Ms. Demetriou’s home nearby, the police said. The cab was southbound on 34th Street when Mr. Omar’s 2004 Range Rover, traveling west on 31st Avenue, struck it, the police said.
A witness, Felipe Santos, 20, said he noticed the Range Rover moments before the crash. “I turned around and I saw the blur,” he said. “Then I heard a big boom. It sounded like an explosion.”
“The livery cab got tossed halfway down the block,” he said. The driver of the Range Rover emerged from his vehicle dazed but not visibly injured, Mr. Santos said. Then a second Range Rover approached, and its driver began berating the first driver, Mr. Santos said. “He was like: ‘What happened? What did you do? I can’t believe you did this.’ ” But Mr. Santos said the first driver quickly left the scene.
It was clear that the two people in the cab were severely injured, Mr. Santos said, and he called 911. “The driver’s side door was completely smashed in,” he said. “I didn’t approach the car because I wanted to be able to sleep later. But I could see long hair, and they weren’t moving.”
Both women were pronounced dead a short while later at Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens.
Sometime after the crash, a local resident, Evangelos Fotiou, 42, came across the scene of the accident and took money from one of the victims, the police said. It was unclear how much he took and where on the street he found it, the police said. Mr. Fotiou, who told officers he was going to return the money, was charged with obstructing governmental administration and petty larceny, the police said.
The livery driver, Ms. Velasquez, started working for Myrtle Car Service eight years ago, when women were rarely seen behind the wheels of cabs, especially in tough neighborhoods in inner Brooklyn, where the company is based.
“She was a strong lady,” Dagoberto Marin, the owner, said at his office on Sunday afternoon. “Spiritual, decisive, a very hard worker.”
Ms. Velasquez left Myrtle three years ago for another company, but returned two weeks ago because business had slowed at the other job, said Raul Alvarado, 43, another driver. “It was all about her daughters for her,” he said.
Neighbors of Ms. Velasquez, a single mother who lived in a four-story red-brick building on Steuben Street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, said she had two daughters, a 17-year-old, also named Bessy, and Kimberley, 14. She was an immigrant from Honduras who also worked as a cleaner for JetBlue Airways at La Guardia Airport.
“She was so busy,” said one neighbor, Joanna Colon, 26. “She would always come in, check on the girls and then run. She worked hard to give her daughters everything.”
Ms. Demetriou, who was known as Penny, moved to Astoria from Cyprus about seven years ago, said a friend, Effie Delimarkos Fletcher.
“She could find goodness in every situation,” said Ms. Fletcher, 28, speaking in the hallway of Ms. Demetriou’s apartment building on 35th Avenue. “She was the kind of friend that if you were a friend for a few months you were a friend for life.”
She had not been going out lately, working instead on her dissertation, but had attended a friend’s party Saturday night, Ms. Fletcher said.
“She was having such a good time, she convinced the other couple to stay a bit longer,” Ms. Fletcher said. “She had a really good time last night. We’re all hoping that was the last thing that was on her mind.”
Mr. Omar, whose name also appears in public records as Omar Daryush, was arrested in 2006 along with five other men after Thomas Whitney Jr., 24, of Hoboken, N.J., was found beaten on 19th Street near Avenue of the Americas in Chelsea. Investigators said Mr. Whitney had been with friends at a bar.
Initially, the investigation was stalled because the police were not immediately notified after the attack. Mr. Whitney, who was found on the ground without any identification, died 12 hours later.
A breakthrough in the case came after the police publicized surveillance images that showed three men on a shopping spree using Mr. Whitney’s credit cards. Mr. Omar and the others were arrested; he and two others were named as suspects in the killing and robbery, and the rest were considered suspects in criminal possession of stolen property.
Later newspaper accounts said the case could not proceed unless eyewitnesses came forward.
They said the man, Daryush Omar, 23, of Plainview, in Nassau County, broadsided the moving cab with his Range Rover. The cab had previously dropped off two other passengers, a couple, who were not injured.
Two Women Die in Queens Livery Crash
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The deaths come two years after Mr. Omar became a suspect in the robbery and killing of the financial worker. He has not been indicted in that case, but the investigation is continuing, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Sunday. A spokeswoman for the office said a court hearing in the case was scheduled for Dec. 12.
The deaths come two years after Mr. Omar became a suspect in the robbery and killing of the financial worker. He has not been indicted in that case, but the investigation is continuing, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Sunday. A spokeswoman for the office said a court hearing in the case was scheduled for Dec. 12.
The crash, which took place shortly after 3 a.m. at 34th Street and 31st Avenue in Astoria, killed Bessy Velasquez, 41, a driver for Myrtle Car Service in Brooklyn, and a passenger, Panayiota Demetriou, 30, a Cypriot immigrant who, according to friends, worked as a psychologist in the emergency room of a Brooklyn hospital and was completing her dissertation in child psychology.
Ms. Velasquez had just dropped off two other passengers, Ms. Demetriou’s best friend and that woman’s male companion, and was heading toward Ms. Demetriou’s home nearby, the police said. The cab was southbound on 34th Street when Mr. Omar’s 2004 Range Rover, traveling west on 31st Avenue, struck it, the police said.
A witness, Felipe Santos, 20, said he noticed the Range Rover moments before the crash. “I turned around and I saw the blur,” he said. “Then I heard a big boom. It sounded like an explosion.”
“The livery cab got tossed halfway down the block,” he said. The driver of the Range Rover emerged from his vehicle dazed but not visibly injured, Mr. Santos said. Then a second Range Rover approached, and its driver began berating the first driver, Mr. Santos said. “He was like: ‘What happened? What did you do? I can’t believe you did this.’ ” But Mr. Santos said the first driver quickly left the scene.
It was clear that the two people in the cab were severely injured, Mr. Santos said, and he called 911. “The driver’s side door was completely smashed in,” he said. “I didn’t approach the car because I wanted to be able to sleep later. But I could see long hair, and they weren’t moving.”
Both women were pronounced dead a short while later at Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens.
Sometime after the crash, a local resident, Evangelos Fotiou, 42, came across the scene of the accident and took money from one of the victims, the police said. It was unclear how much he took and where on the street he found it, the police said. Mr. Fotiou, who told officers he was going to return the money, was charged with obstructing governmental administration and petty larceny, the police said.
The livery driver, Ms. Velasquez, started working for Myrtle Car Service eight years ago, when women were rarely seen behind the wheels of cabs, especially in tough neighborhoods in inner Brooklyn, where the company is based.
“She was a strong lady,” Dagoberto Marin, the owner, said at his office on Sunday afternoon. “Spiritual, decisive, a very hard worker.”
Ms. Velasquez left Myrtle three years ago for another company, but returned two weeks ago because business had slowed at the other job, said Raul Alvarado, 43, another driver. “It was all about her daughters for her,” he said.
Neighbors of Ms. Velasquez, a single mother who lived in a four-story red-brick building on Steuben Street in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, said she had two daughters, a 17-year-old, also named Bessy, and Kimberley, 14. She was an immigrant from Honduras who also worked as a cleaner for JetBlue Airways at La Guardia Airport.
“She was so busy,” said one neighbor, Joanna Colon, 26. “She would always come in, check on the girls and then run. She worked hard to give her daughters everything.”
Ms. Demetriou, who was known as Penny, moved to Astoria from Cyprus about seven years ago, said a friend, Effie Delimarkos Fletcher.
“She could find goodness in every situation,” said Ms. Fletcher, 28, speaking in the hallway of Ms. Demetriou’s apartment building on 35th Avenue. “She was the kind of friend that if you were a friend for a few months you were a friend for life.”
She had not been going out lately, working instead on her dissertation, but had attended a friend’s party Saturday night, Ms. Fletcher said.
“She was having such a good time, she convinced the other couple to stay a bit longer,” Ms. Fletcher said. “She had a really good time last night. We’re all hoping that was the last thing that was on her mind.”
Mr. Omar, whose name also appears in public records as Omar Daryush, was arrested in 2006 along with five other men after Thomas Whitney Jr., 24, of Hoboken, N.J., was found beaten on 19th Street near Avenue of the Americas in Chelsea. Investigators said Mr. Whitney had been with friends at a bar.
Initially, the investigation was stalled because the police were not immediately notified after the attack. Mr. Whitney, who was found on the ground without any identification, died 12 hours later.
A breakthrough in the case came after the police publicized surveillance images that showed three men on a shopping spree using Mr. Whitney’s credit cards. Mr. Omar and the others were arrested; he and two others were named as suspects in the killing and robbery, and the rest were considered suspects in criminal possession of stolen property.
Later newspaper accounts said the case could not proceed unless eyewitnesses came forward.
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