Mayor Eric Adams is personally offering a $1,000 reward to help catch the driver responsible for a deadly hit-and-run accident that killed a groom-to-be just one day before his wedding. Adams announced the reward on Tuesday, seeking information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the driver who crashed into a Dodge Challenger carrying Kirk Walker, a 38-year-old father of three.
“Any accident is a terrible accident, but some of them turn into Shakespearean tragedies,” Adams said during his weekly press briefing at City Hall.
“I’m putting $1,000 of my own personal money towards the arrest and conviction of this person,” Adams added.
The tragic incident occurred early Saturday morning around 2:20 a.m. Walker and his cousin, Robert McLaurin, 40, were out celebrating his bachelor party when their car was hit by a wrong-way driver in a Chevy Silverado on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Both Walker and McLaurin died in the collision.
Walker’s fiancée, Shauntea Weaver, 40, was devastated by the loss. “I’m supposed to be in my wedding dress right now—not in mourning,” she told reporters on the day they were set to marry at the Royal Manor wedding venue in Garfield, New Jersey.
According to police, the driver of the Chevy Silverado and a passenger fled the scene just before the truck caught fire. The passenger, a 21-year-old man, was found about 30 feet from the crash site and was taken to the hospital, though he has not been charged.
The Chevy Silverado also struck a 2018 Audi S3 during the crash, injuring two men who were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
