World Cup Watch Party Ends In Unthinkable Tragedy

A speeding New Jersey driver who struck and killed two World Cup fans before fleeing the scene was charged on Wednesday, authorities said. 

David J. Zapata-Vera, the 26-year-old driver, surrendered himself to authorities on Tuesday after speeding through a Newark intersection as two women were walking across the street.

He was charged with two counts of vehicular homicide, two counts of leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident resulting in death, and two counts of endangering an injured victim, according to New Jersey News 12. He is currently being held in the Essex County jail without bond. 

The victims, Maria Isabel DeLos Angeles, 61, and Mariana Elizabeth Valverde Beltran, 58, were in the crosswalk when they were hit by Zapata-Vera, said the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. The two women were walking home from a World Cup watch party on Saturday night, The New York Post reported.

Surveillance cameras on the street captured the red sedan speeding through the intersection before it struck the victims, sending them airborne.

Manuel Candelaria, a witness to the tragedy, claimed that Zapata-Vera accelerated through the intersection. “The light was changing, this side was red, this side was yellow, I don’t know if he was drunk, but anyway he put the gas and that’s what happens,” he said.

The two victims were rushed to the University Hospital Newark, where they were pronounced dead.

“You have to live with this for the rest of your life. I hope the person is found but also for that person it’s something you have to live with for the rest of your life, it’s on your conscience,” Jeffrey Chacon, Beltran’s cousin, said to WABC. “My dad is managing his emotions with trying to contact everyone in Ecuador, her sisters, her son.”