A New Jersey woman has been charged with driving while impaired and causing the head-on crash that killed a teenager and injured several others in Medford Lakes earlier this year, authorities announced Thursday.
Theresa McElvarr, 58, was charged with second-degree vehicular homicide and four counts of assault by auto, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said. She was served with a warrant Wednesday at her home on Lenape Path in Shamong where she’s recovering from injuries received in the crash.
Prosecutors and police said in a release that the case against McElvarr “will be prepared for presentation to a grand jury for possible indictment.”
Shortly after midnight on June 13, 2022, McElvarr veered into the oncoming lane while driving on Stokes Road and collided head-on with a Honda Civic near Pawnee Trail, authorities said.
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Neighbors told NBC10 that the sound of the crash was deafening.
Inside of the car were five teenagers, including 17-year-old Gianna Mastalski of Mullica Hill, New Jersey, who was driving, according to prosecutors. Police said she was rushed to Virtua Marlton Hospital where she was pronounced dead around 1:45 a.m.
The other four teens were taken to Cooper University Hospital, police said. Three of them were admitted with broken bones and other injuries.
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McElvarr was taken to Cooper with various injuries, as well, authorities said.
A neighbor, Jill Fabritore, said the impact of the collision outside of her bedroom window was so loud, she thought a tree fell on her home. She ran outside and dialed 911.
Fabritore told police that McElvarr stayed in her wrecked SUV. She said the injured teens had flagged down another driver, a good Samaritan, who helped them dial their parents, as they weren’t able to find their phones inside the mangled sedan.
“The car was a mess,” Fabritore said. “It looked like the passenger door was ripped off.”
Police said Mastalski was trapped behind the wheel.
According to her grandparents who raised her, Mastalski was excited about summer and graduating from Clearview Regional High School. The ceremony was scheduled just two days after the car crash that took her life.
