Driver charged in head-on crash that killed his 22-year-old passenger, authorities say
Updated Mar 10, 2021;
A Paterson man was arrested Tuesday and charged in a head-on crash last month that killed his passenger and seriously injured another driver, authorities said.
Dwayne Smalls, 20, was a driver in a three-vehicle crash about 4:50 a.m. on Feb. 24 at an intersection along Route 20 in Paterson, officials said.
Smalls’ passenger, 22-year-old Marquise Samuels, of Paterson, died three days later. The crash seriously injured another driver, identified as a 63-year-old man from Fair Lawn in Bergen County, according to the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office.
A third driver, a 57-year-old woman from Hawthorne, suffered minor injuries when Smalls’ car struck her SUV and sent it into a guardrail, prosecutors said.