By Christina Santucci
Loved ones were mourning four East Elmhurst friends killed when a car plunged into Steinway Creek Friday night and became fully submerged in the Astoria waterway.
“She was beautiful on the inside and out,” said Paula Slader, whose teen daughter Jada Monique Butts was one of the victims. “She was a no nonsense young lady.”
Butts, 19; Darius Fletcher, 21; Crystal Gravely, 19; Jaleel Feurtado, 20; all died after a Honda carrying five people struck a curb and flipped into the waterway near 19th Avenue and 37th Street, police said.
“They were good kids. They got together to have fun with each other, go to each other’s houses.” Slader said. “This accident was unfortunate.”
The 20-year-old driver, identified as Andrew Gramm, escaped from the car and was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in stable condition, authorities said.
Authorities believe he did not have alcohol or drugs in his system, and investigators made a preliminary determination that speed was a factor in the accident, a spokesman for the NYPD said Tuesday.
Relatives said the evening was meant as a celebration for Gravely.
“They were friends going out for a birthday,” said Fletcher’s aunt, Alicia Nation. “This is just a senseless tragedy.”
Battalion 49 Chief James Jacobs said emergency responders had raced to the scene at the end of a dead-end street a little after 10:30 p.m. after a 911 call came in about a car in the water with people trapped inside.
“Upon arrival we saw a gentleman down the block waving us in,” Jacobs said. “He informed us that he was the driver. He was able to self-evacuate and there were four confirmed people in the car.”
“He was obviously a little upset, a little frantic,” Jacobs said of Gramm.
Emergency responders were unable to see the 2009 Honda Accord from land, so two members of Ladder 117 went into the water and spotted the vehicle soon afterward about 30 feet from the shore and 8 feet under water, Jacobs said.
“The car was actually flipped on its roof. The roof was on the bottom of the creek,” Jacobs said.
Two rescue scuba teams — Rescue 3 and 4 — were called in and pulled the four passengers from the water in conjunction with Ladder 117, Jacobs said while speaking to reporters just after midnight Saturday.
Three of the four were taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, and the fourth was brought to Mount Sinai Hospital Queens in Astoria, where he was pronounced dead, the NYPD said.
Nation said her nephew was in his senior year at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., and was studying public health. She broke into tears several times as she spoke about the group.
“They were all good kids,” she said.
Butt’s 12-year-old sister Jaimee said Butts had attended IS 127 in East Elmhurst, where she met the rest of the group, then William Bryant High School and was studying at Borough of Manhattan Community College. Butts was one of five siblings, her sister said. A friend of the family said Butts had recently posted a psalm from the Book of Philippians in the Bible.
“She was very beautiful,” Jaimee said. “She was nice, she was hardworking, she was strong. She would tell it like it is.”
Evelyn Washington, who said she has been a friend of Butts’ mother for the past 30 years, described her as an intelligent, loving teen.
“She just was a beautiful girl and we are going to miss her very much,” Washington said.
Jaimee and about a dozen young friends who gathered on the family’s front steps Tuesday evening pointed to the starry sky.
“She’s up there,” one said.
Friends posted numerous messages on the victims’ social media accounts and a makeshift memorial with dozens of candles, bouquets of flowers and a basketball was set up at the accident site, behind a jersey barrier and barrels set up by the city Department of Transportation Saturday.
Feurtado had played on Monsignor McClancy’s basketball team and was studying at Saint Peter’s College in New Jersey, according to his Facebook account. A “home going” service in his memory was scheduled for Wednesday evening in Corona, while one for Butts was slated for Friday.
The NYPD’s Highway Collision Investigation Squad was still investigating the accident, officials said.
Reach managing editor Christina Santucci by e-mail at timesledgerphotos@gmail.com by phone at 718-260-4589.
