Police arrested two Manhattan men in connection with the death of an 83-year-old nun killed in a Harlem traffic accident caused by fleeing robbery suspects.
Police Wednesday charged 18-year-old William Robbins with robbery and 20-year-old Dyson Williams with second degree murder and robbery. It wasn't clear if they had lawyers yet.
The Tuesday morning crash, which also injured four people, occurred after police identified a car believed to be driven by three suspects wanted in an earlier armed robbery.
“It had to be going about seventy, eighty miles an hour when it hit them,” witness Wayne Harris told NBCNewYork. “It just sounded like an explosion.”
Police arrested the driver, but the passenger slid into the driver's seat and sped off with the other suspect, slamming into a minivan a few blocks away.
Two pedestrians were critically injured, and Sister Mary Celine Graham later died.
“The passenger of the blue car [the suspects’ car] got out and immediately fled eastbound on 122nd street,” said an eyewitness who asked to be identified as Eric. The driver was slower at getting out but escaped as well. “By that time the unmarked police cars had pulled up to the scene and subsequently started chasing the guys.”
“The blue car…spun around and wiped out the people—the older ladies in the median,” Eric told NBCNewYork. “The force of the impact caused them to go on the other side, into the northbound lane of Lenox Avenue.”
Investigation into the robbery and car crash are ongoing, police confirm.
