TOMS RIVER – Kayla Edgell wasn’t looking for dashcam video when the first recording of her father’s final drive unexpectedly found its way to her.
Four days after 57-year-old Mark D. Edgell Sr. died in a September 10 crash on the Garden State Parkway, a motorist who had been traveling nearby contacted his daughter on social media. The person had front- and rear-facing dashcam footage from the area and thought Kayla should have it. The motorist also submitted the footage to New Jersey State Police.
Kayla said she received the recordings on September 14, before she began the public appeal now circulating on social media asking other drivers to check their own cameras. What she saw and heard in that first footage left her with questions about whether another vehicle may have been involved in the moments before her father’s Nissan Pathfinder went out of control.
Now, with the official crash report still unavailable to her, Kayla is trying to find anyone who was traveling south on the Parkway near mile marker 103.1 at approximately 4:50 p.m. on Thursday, September 10. She is looking for witnesses as well as dashcam, cellphone or other video that might provide another angle of what happened.
“Somebody somewhere saw something,” Kayla said. “Whether it’s a phone video, dashcam footage, or they just saw it with their own eyes.”
Video Leads To Questions
Kayla said State Police initially described the incident to her as a single-vehicle crash. Based on what she was told, her father struck a guardrail, attempted to correct the vehicle, crossed the Parkway and went into an embankment, where the Pathfinder struck a tree.
The official police report has not been released to the family. Kayla said she has repeatedly sought additional information but has been told the investigation remains underway and the crash report is not yet available.
The dashcam recordings provided to Kayla and reviewed by this newspaper do not clearly show a collision. They do, however, capture traffic traveling near Edgell’s vehicle, and a sudden loud noise can be heard as vehicles move outside the camera’s field of view.
Kayla believes another vehicle visible in the recording may have moved toward her father’s lane immediately before he lost control. She suspects the vehicles may have made contact, but the available footage does not provide a clear view of what occurred. No police report has been released establishing whether another vehicle was involved.
“You can see everything, and you can hear a collision happen,” Kayla said. “But it’s on the side of the person who sent me the dashcam footage. It’s on the side of their car, so you can’t see it in the frame.”
That uncertainty prompted Kayla to begin looking for another camera angle. She has posted on social media, distributed flyers at the Judy Blume Service Area and is offering a cash reward for new footage. Time is particularly important because she worries dashcam recordings from September 10 could soon be overwritten or deleted.
“I know we’re getting down to crunch time,” she said.
Military Veteran
Edgell would have turned 58 on September 15, five days after the crash. He had been living with Kayla in Toms River at the time of his death.
Kayla said her father spent close to 25 years in military service, serving during the Gulf War and later in Afghanistan. After leaving active-duty Army service, he joined the National Guard and became a senior instructor teaching mechanics. He retired from the military in 2023 and was a 100 percent disabled veteran, according to his daughter.
Edgell was also a mechanic and lifelong car enthusiast. On September 10, he had followed a familiar routine, traveling to his best friend’s home in Tinton Falls to work on a 1969 Mercury Cougar Eliminator he had been rebuilding from the ground up. He was driving home to Toms River when the crash occurred.
The Cougar was his “baby,” Kayla said, and she and her 27-year-old brother, also named Mark, intend to finish restoring it.
Cars were also part of the bond between father and daughter. “He was my best friend,” Kayla said. “I know everything about cars because me and my dad would just sit in the driveway and work on cars together.”
Edgell had raised Kayla and her brother as a single father while serving full time in the military. He coached Kayla’s softball team and remained deeply involved with his children and grandchildren.
“He was just overall the best person I ever knew in my entire life,” she said.
A Difficult Final Year
Edgell had already endured a major loss only months before the crash. In April, fire severely damaged his home in Shrewsbury while he was inside with his dog. Kayla said her father escaped but went back into the house to rescue the animal before trying unsuccessfully to fight the flames with a garden hose.
With the house no longer habitable, Edgell moved into Kayla’s Toms River home. She said the family and others helped replace clothing and belongings he had lost. Father and daughter had recently begun speaking with lenders about purchasing a larger home where he could live with her permanently.
Edgell was laid to rest September 21 at Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery.
Kayla also remains grateful to the strangers who stopped when her father’s vehicle left the Parkway. She said an off-duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard and a trauma nurse were among those who performed CPR, while a state trooper also attempted lifesaving measures.
Kayla is asking motorists who traveled that stretch of the Parkway on September 10 to check their recordings even if they do not remember witnessing the crash itself. A camera could have captured Edgell’s Pathfinder or another vehicle immediately before or after the accident without its owner realizing the significance of what was recorded.
For a daughter who unexpectedly received one piece of video four days after losing her father, the hope is that another recording may still be out there and could provide the view that is missing. Anyone who witnessed the crash or was traveling on the Garden State Parkway southbound near mile marker 103.1 at approximately 4:50 p.m. on September 10 and may have dashcam, cellphone or other video is asked to contact Kayla Edgell at kaylaedgell96@gmail.com.
