CARNEYS POINT — Three teenagers from Lakewood were among four people killed early Sunday after a pickup truck traveling the wrong way on the New Jersey Turnpike slammed into their SUV, authorities said.
According to New Jersey State Police, the crash occurred around 12:45 a.m. near milepost 1.3 on the southbound side of the turnpike. A Dodge pickup, driven by a 41-year-old Colorado man, was heading north in the wrong direction when it collided head-on with a Mazda SUV carrying four young men.
The SUV’s driver, 19-year-old Yaakov Kilberg of Lakewood, and passengers 18-year-olds Aharon Lebovits and Shlomo Cohen, also of Lakewood, died at the scene, police said. Another passenger, 18-year-old Chaim Grossman of Fallsburg, New York, was also killed.
After the initial impact, the SUV was struck by a Freightliner tractor-trailer traveling behind it, police said. The truck driver, a 29-year-old man from Nova Scotia, Canada, was not injured.
The pickup driver was hospitalized with serious injuries.
State police said the cause of the crash remains under investigation.
