{"id":78689,"date":"2025-07-20T18:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/78689\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T18:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T18:50:09","slug":"driver-of-drug-filled-stolen-car-in-nyc-double-fatal-already-faced-charges-from-earlier-crash-cops-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/78689\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver of drug-filled stolen car in NYC double-fatal already faced charges from earlier crash: cops, records"},"content":{"rendered":"

The troubled 23-year-old woman accused in Saturday\u2019s hit-run<\/a> that killed two people in Chinatown had been charged in another horror crash just three months ago and freed without bail, records show.<\/p>\n

The suspect, identified by sources as Autumn Donna Ascencio Romero, was charged with leaving the scene of an accident and driving without a license in the April 13 Brooklyn crash, which reportedly left a 22-year-old pedestrian with injuries including to her face and neck.<\/p>\n

A stolen car slammed into two bystanders near the Manhattan Bridge on Saturday morning, killing both. William Farrington<\/p>\n

The driver of the stolen car in the fatal wreck was carried off by police after fleeing the scene and getting caught, cops said. William Farrington<\/p>\n

Romero was nabbed in that crash the next day with the help of a witness, the Daily News said \u2014 only to be dumped right back on the street after her arraignment thanks to the state\u2019s bail-reform laws, court records show.<\/p>\n

Then around 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Romero was behind the wheel of a booze- and drug-filled stolen blue Chevy Malibu when it plowed into a man on a bicycle and a 63-year-old woman on a bench at Bowery and Canal streets in Manhattan, killing both before slamming into an NYPD van, police said.<\/p>\n

Romero and her alleged passenger, 22-year-old Kennedy LaCraft, fled the scene but were quickly nabbed nearby, cops said.<\/p>\n

LaCraft was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, an NYPD spokesman said.<\/p>\n

Charges against Romero were pending, sources told The Post. <\/p>\n

The speeding car plowed into two people and then into an empty NYPD van in Chinatown on Saturday morning. William Farrington<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn DAs Office did not immediately respond to a Post request for information on the earlier incident, but records show Romero was arraigned and released April 14 with a court date for it Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

In the Saturday morning crash, the car had been rented but not returned and thus been reported stolen, police said.<\/p>\n

Cops said the car, which was supposed to be returned to Enterprise 17 days earlier, was packed with \u201cbooze and drugs,\u201d including pills, marijuana and a bottle of alcohol, police sources said. <\/p>\n

Police said a man in his 30s on a bicycle and a 63-year-old woman sitting on a bench were both killed in the crash. William Farrington<\/p>\n

Police did not identify the man killed on his bike, but the other fatal victim was ID\u2019d by her brother as Mary Kwok, 63.<\/p>\n

Her sibling, Peter Kwok, told The Post his sister was sitting on a bench when she was struck and killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s her hangout spot,\u201d he said. \u201cShe goes to church in Chinatown.\u201d<\/p>\n

The driver of the car, identified as Autumn Donna Ascencio Romero, already had a pending case involving a crash. William Farrington<\/p>\n

He said his sister struggled with mental illness in recent years and would sometimes leave the home in the wee hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had thought about the scenario, you know, what could happen to her,\u201d Peter said. \u201cYou know, in the city anything can happen like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Marie Pohl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The troubled 23-year-old woman accused in Saturday\u2019s hit-run that killed two people in Chinatown had been charged in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":78690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,1121,5303,32457,5249,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,5257,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-78689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-car-crashes","11":"tag-chinatown","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-newyork","17":"tag-newyorkcity","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-nypd","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114887067180207645","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}