Criminal charges after crash kills couple in Highland Park, NJ

🔴 A couple was killed in a crash on Raritan Avenue late Tuesday afternoon

🔴 A third car was also involved in the crash

🔴 Video shows debris scattered all over Raritan Avenue

HIGHLAND PARK —Two people were killed in a horrific three-vehicle crash on Raritan Avenue (Route 27) Tuesday evening.

Middlesex County Prosecutor Yolonda Ciccone said a Subaru occupied by Peter Palmer, 75, and Carol Paul, 77, both of Easton, Maryland, was struck on Raritan Avenue at North 10th Street in Highland Park around 5:30 p.m. by a Mercedes operated by Abeer Viriani, 34, of the Iselin section of Woodbridge.

Palmer and Paul were pronounced dead at the scene, according to Ciccione. Viriani sustained serious injuries and was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.

Viriani also struck a Hyundai Elantra whose driver suffered minor injuries.

Two sets of charges

Viriani was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree aggravated manslaughter and two counts of second-degree vehicular homicide. Viriani is being held pending a pre-trial detention hearing in Superior Court.

The prosecutor did not disclose the circumstances of the crash. NBC 4 New York reported two of the vehicles collided head-on.  Video showed debris from the crash scattered all over the street and all with heavy front-end damage.

One of the vehicles came to rest against the building housing Schwartz & Nagle car repair.

CPR was being administered to one person lying outside one of the vehicles in one video.

The deaths are the first in a vehicle crash in Highland Park this year and the 30th and 31st in Middlesex County, according to State Police statistics. There has not been a fatal crash on a Highland Park road since 2021 when a bicyclist was struck on Raritan Avenue.

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