Aug. 24, 2023 By Bill Parry
An Arverne man was arrested on Aug. 23 and charged in connection with a fatal collision that killed two people in Bayswater on New Year’s Day 2021.
Detectives from the 101st Precinct in Far Rockaway busted Anthony Martin, 37, of Beach 67th Street after he was indicted in Queens Supreme Court after he ran away from the scene of the crash more than two-and-a-half years earlier.
On the morning of Jan. 1, 2021, police from the 101st Precinct responded to a 911 call of a motor vehicle collision at Ocean Crest Boulevard and Rockaway Freeway where they found 60-year-old Thelma Reid and 57-year-old Donovan Gibbon lying on the roadway unconscious and unresponsive with trauma to their head and bodies. EMS responded to the scene and rushed the two victims to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, where they were both pronounced dead. The two lived together just a block away from the scene of the crash on Ocean Crest Freeway.
A preliminary by the NYPD’s Highway Collision Investigation Squad determined Martin was behind the wheel of a gray 2011 Dodge Ram traveling at a high rate of speed eastbound on Rockaway Freeway, when he struck a blue 2019 Nissan Rogue traveling northbound on Ocean Crest Boulevard.
Martin allegedly fled the location on foot while two passengers in his vehicle remained at the location. The 37-year-old man sustained lacerations to his head and a 33-year-old man was taken into custody and charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration.
Martin was booked at the 101st Precinct where he was charged with two counts of criminally negligent homicide and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, according to the NYPD.