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07/24/2012 12:02 AM

Family Mourns Losses In Fatal Jamaica SUV Crash

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NY1 is learning more about the eight victims of a horrific crash in Queens Sunday. Of the five who were killed, four are from the same family. NY1's Michael Herzenberg filed the following report.

Family and friends joined 26-year-old Kingsley Maduka at home. He lost his 60-year-old aunt, Gladys Nnena Johnson Obioha and four other loved ones in the wreck Sunday. Family friend Don Akamnonu said they're all crushed.

"The family is just, like, shattered, like a broken bottle," he said.

Early Sunday morning, a driver and seven passengers were coming home from a gathering of people from the same part of Nigeria when police say their black SUV crashed into a concrete barrier on Atlantic Avenue, rolled over and burst into flames.

Investigators said 46-year-old Oby Okoro was the driver. She and her 7-year-old son survived the wreck.

Okoro's 8-year-old daughter and 9-year-old nephew did not. Neither did her 45-year-old sister. A family friend from Nigeria who lived in Brooklyn also died.

Neighbors on the family's block in the Bronx said the family was made up of good, hard-working people. They're also devastated.

"It's children," said one. "It's families. It's hard to see that so many lives were lost."