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NJ Father, 4 Daughters Killed in Delaware Crash Laid to Rest

What to Know

  • A father and his four daughters who were killed in a head-on crash in Delaware were laid to rest Saturday
  • The Teaneck family was killed July 6 but the funeral was postponed until the mother, the only survivor, was well enough to attend
  • The funeral was held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where the five caskets were draped in white cloths

A father and his four daughters who were killed in a head-on crash in Delaware were remembered Saturday at a funeral mass. 

The mother of the girls, Mary Rose Trinidad, was critically injured and was the only survivor of the July 6 crash. The funeral was postponed until she was well enough to attend, which she did in a wheelchair. 

Five caskets were draped in white cloths at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Rothman Center in Hackensack. A framed photo of each family member was placed in front of their coffin. 

The Rev. Herman Kinzler, the pastor of St. Anastasia's Church in Teaneck where the family belonged, remembered the Trinidad's as "a faith-filled family."

He said Audie Trinidad, 61, was an usher. The girls, 20-year-old Nikki, 17-year-old Danna and 13-year-old twins Allison and Melissa, had been members of the children's choir when they were younger. 

"They brought Christ to life in the way that they reached out to others," Kinzler said. "They brought Christ to life in the very way that they lived."

At the end of the service, the casket of Audie, a Navy veteran, was draped with a flag which was folded and presented to Mary Rose. 

The family was returning from a trip to Ocean City, Maryland, in a minivan on Delaware Route 1 when a Ford pickup truck veered across a grassy median and into northbound traffic, police said. It struck the family's minivan head-on.

No one in the pickup was seriously injured. 

Mary Rose Trinidad has said that the only thing keeping her going in the wake of this tragedy is the chance to seek justice for her family.

"I want justice for them and him criminally prosecuted," she added. 

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