A neighbor said the crash that took four lives in Bowie, Maryland, on Friday night was a familiar sound along the busy stretch of Woodmore Road where it happened. It’s also a sound that Marian Levezzo said she’s heard before during the 37 years she’s lived there.
The crash happened around 7:30 p.m. when a carjacked vehicle slammed into her next door neighbor’s tree. Levezzo and her husband were both inside their home watching a movie when she said the impact was so strong it shook her house.
“It’s happened so much here we’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “I knew right away it was another accident.”
She said that she and her husband were out the door in less than a minute.
“We got out and there were flames shooting up,” she said. “There was a couple of guys — because it took down part of the fence, they had one of the fence posts and were trying to break the window. They finally broke it but by then it was too late.”
“It was just engulfed in flames. It was so sad,” she said.
Police in Greenbelt said a 2019 Kia Sorrento was carjacked outside an apartment complex on Edmonston Court around 12:50 a.m. on Friday. When the car was taken by three to four men, it had its proper license plates on. Prince George’s County police said an officer who spotted expired temporary tags on the vehicle about 16 hours later tried to pull it over a few minutes before the crash occurred.
“I was worried about my husband because he walked up there thinking he could help and I’m waiting for this vehicle to explode,” she said, adding that the images of other drivers trying to get the four out are still vivid.
A makeshift memorial with balloons, flowers and a stuffed animal rest against the tree where the crash happened. On the ground, engine parts are still nestled in the burned out dirt and grass, which you can still smell. Levezzo said the battery of the stolen car ended up in her other next door neighbor’s yard.
“It was heartbreaking,” said Levezzo. “Four people in there died.”
