Four NY girls die en route to school when tree falls on their van; six others suffer minor injuries in accident

Jet, March 24, 1997

Four New York girls recently died as they were headed to school when fiercely high winds uprooted a tree which caused it to fall on top of the church van they were riding in and crush them.

Kristin Washington, 12, and her 10-year-old sister, Kimberly, were killed in the tragic accident along with Kia Satterfield, 10, and Olivia Warren, 10. The children were on their way to Allen Christian School, which is affiliated with the Allen AME Church, pastored by U.S. Rep Floyd Flake, in the Queens neighborhood of St. Albans.

Police said the children died instantly. The medical examiner's office said the official cause of death for one girl was "blunt impact," and the cause of death for the other three was "mechanical asphyxia," or crushing.

The church van driver, Maxine Capers, 59, her husband, Sam Capers, 63, and four other children, Janine Knight, 14, Tiana Cole, 14, Delila Jarvis, 9, and Howard Haron, 4, were treated for trauma, cuts, bruises and other minor injuries.

Winds that reportedly reached between 50 to 60 mph uprooted the 75-foot-tall, 70-year-old silver maple tree. The rear of the van's roof was flattened to the floor, while the front end was lifted a foot off the ground like a see-saw.

The thunderous noise of the crash brought neighbors running to help. Maxine Capers managed to crawl from the wrecked van. Bleeding and crying, neighbors reported Capers screamed, "Get the babies out! Get the babies out!" Her husband came out of the passenger side sobbing and praying, "Oh Ged help us! Have mercy? Some neighbors rushed out in undershirts and nightgowns to help to pry open the doors and pull out Knight, Cole, Jarvis and Haron, who sat in the front of the van. The four girls, Kristin, Kimberly, Kia and Olivia, were trapped in the back of the van, where the tree's impact killed them immediately.

New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and some neighborhood residents said the driver apparently saw the tree falling and tried to speed past, but it struck the rear of the van, Newsday reported.

Linda Morant, director of the Allen Christian School, which runs from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and has 480 students, described the victims as "happy, beautiful spirits from caring families."

Olivia Warren was an only child. Her father died from cancer two years ago in December. Kia Satterfield was the oldest of two children; she had a baby brother.

Kurt Washington, the father of Kristin and Kimberly, called the tragedy "an act of God."

"There's no other explanation," Washington told the Daily News. "It appears the Holy Father needed my two girls more than my wife and I did and took them away."

The Allen Christian School held a memorial service for the four children in the school's auditorium. Nearly 600 children, faculty, family and friends attended.

"Many of us are wondering why," U.S. Rep. Floyd Flake (D-St. Albans), minister of the Allen AME Church, told the overflowing crowd. "There are so many unanswered questions. But perhaps the purpose of this tragedy was so you might now learn to love each other even more."

Karl McClendon, Kimberly and Kia's teacher in the fourth grade, told the New York Times, "Even as I smiled at my other students today, my pain is great. I knew they were gone and these were my babies."